From Black to White and Reverse (Touhou Fan Fiction)
by TheOVJM
Summary: Desires of Deepest Red and Scourge Shrouded in Gold have ended with so many unanswered questions that it is high time for you to hear what happened way before anything happened. This story takes us far back to to the days of the great witch of the forest and Reimu's mother and how they still haunt the minds of few certain people. Note that this is a prologue for DoDR and SSiG.


**From Black to White and Reverse**

The following story takes place during the events of the chapter 36 of Touhou Ibarakasen Wild and Horned hermit. If you're not familiar with the events of that chapter it is advisable to read it before reading this story.

"There we go. I advertised my heart our yesterday, so this time there'll be lots of people," Reimu announced triumphantly after finishing up cleaning the shrine for the festival that was supposed to be held that day. Reimu was the shrine maiden of the Hakurei shrine. She had a black hair with red and white ribbon and two hair tubes on her sidelocks. She had a red skirt and sleeveless red top with a pair of white detached sleeves.

"Based on your attitude I'm guessing your adds got a good response?" Kasen asked from confident Reimu. Kasen was a hermit who had been helping Reimu out with tending the shrine. She had a shoulder length pink hair with Chinese-styled double buns. Her right arm was wrapped in bandages and she was wearing a white shirt and green skirt, over those a brown front panel that had a thorny vine motif and a large rose shaped ornament just below her collar level.

"I got the feeling that everyone will definitely come," Reimu enthused with a bit greedy spark in her eyes. Kasen just sighed and shook her head with gentle smile on her face. A few hours passed. The kappa who had set up a food stalls for the festival had started to become bored after no one had appeared.

"Geez, this is awful," Marisa said while scratching her hair. Marisa was a human witch who was Reimus old friend. Marisa had a long blonde hair and a black witch's hat that had a white ribbon tied around it on top of her head. She had a black skirt, white apron on top of that and a white short sleeved dress shirt that had a black vaist on top of it. Her clothing style had earned her her iconic nickname "The Black White".

"Guess people really don't wanna come to the shrine," Marisa said while looking towards the staircase that lead up to the shrine.

"Hahahaha... Why is no one coming?" Reimu muttered to herself with a bit nervous and depressed tone and look on her face. But then Marisa suddenly tucked Reimu to her shoulder and pointed at the staircase. Reimu turned around and saw how there was just one person coming towards the shrine building. Reimu lightened up immediately, but her joy was short lived. The man walked towards the shrine while wobbling constantly until he finally staggered and fell to the path leading to the shrine building.

"Are you okay!?" Reimu immediately yelled and ran up to the man who was laying on the ground.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine...," The man replied weakly.

"Were you attacked!?" Reimu asked quickly after kneeling beside the man.

"Forget that, just... water...," The man responded and reached out for Reimu. Reimu and Kasen then immediately ran to the shrine to get some water for the man. Marisa just watched after them.

"Heh, even under that greedy personality, she's still pretty caring person," Marisa thought to herself and grinned. Reimu then brought water for the man who immediately drank all of it. He then walked towards the food stalls to get something to eat while still constantly wobbling.

"I'm fine...," The man muttered while walking towards the stalls.

Something's gotta be up. Maybe someone's interfering on the path to the shrine after all?" Reimu said to Kasen with a bit panicked tone.

"That's crazy...," Kasen responded with troubled look on her face.

"That man, he doesn't look like he was attacked or anything. It looks more like he simply collapsed from hunger," Kasen continued while rubbing her chin. Marisa then hopped on to her broom and took flight.

"I'm gonna take quick look," Marisa said before heading towards the staircase leading away from the shrine. She was planning to take a look and see if there was anything strange going on. The shrine wasn't so far away from the human village so it was kinda weird for someone to collapse from hunger after walking to the shrine. Reimu and Kasen just looked how Marisa flew towards the torii behind which the stairs started.

"During times like these I can hardly tell the difference between her and her mother...," Marisa thought to herself while flying down the staircase. A one tear rolled down her cheek as she flew towards the road leading into the forest.

"I wonder, would we even be friends or ever even got to know each other if I had done even something in some other way...?" Marisa thought to herself, closed her eyes and let her mind drift away as the wind smoothed her cheek.

A huge amount of hand written notes about magical research and other stuff related to magic filled the gloomy room that only had one candle burning in it. On the far end of the room there was a worktable and a chair in front of it. The table too was filled with those same notes. On the chair in front of the table there was a person. The person had fallen asleep while working on her research. The person had pretty worn black robes and grey hair. If someone had to guess that person couldn't be younger than ninety years old.

"Marisa! What are you doing?" A voice yelled from outside of the room. Marisa then woke up from her nap. She had fallen asleep while going through her notes. She then rubbed her eyes quickly, glanced at the notes and sighed. She then happened to glance at one of the papers. It was an old drawing. It was done by a kid by the looks of it and one could see that it pictured two girls holding hands. Marisa looked at it for a moment and then pushed it away together with the rest of the papers. She then stretched a little before standing up from the chair painstakingly slowly.

"Uhhh, I really am not as energetic as I used to be," Marisa muttered and chuckled a bit while leaning against a wall with her left hand. Her back was hunched because of all the sitting she had had to do while studying magic. She then took her broom from the corner of the room and used it as a walking stick to keep herself up. She then started walking towards the door of the room and when she finally got to it she opened it and walked through it. Marisa walked to her living room to greet her quest. Mima was floating around Marisa's living room and rummaged through Marisa's dusty notes with curious look on her face. Mima had a long green hair, purple ribbon around her neck and blue cap on top of he head. She had a blue dress with green hem and the white shapes of moon and stars on the dress. She also had a purple cape and on the place where her feet were supposed to be there was only a white wispy and transparent ghost tail. Mima then moved her gaze away from the notes, looked at Marisa and grinned.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Marisa said as she sat down to her coach.

"Well one of the key elements of learning magic is to be able to learn it without constant aiding. Seems like you've done a good job at that," Mima said with mischevious look on her face as she floated circles around Marisa.

"So how much progress you've made since I visited you the last time?" Mima asked and landed beside Marisa to the couch.

"Not as much I had hoped. At this rate it would take me almost two hundred years to be able to make myself immortal," Marisa said and shook her head with tired look on her face.

"And as we agreed, here's where I come in," Mima said and grinned as she floated to tha air once again.

"I promised to help you in defeating the Hakurei bloodline if you helped me in achieving immortality. However I don't see this agreement put into any use yet," Marisa said and looked at Mima.

"Well of course not. You would have been no use for me if you hadn't studied magic. I presume I did a fine job teaching you the basics so you could figure out the rest for yourself. But now, now you might be ready...," Mima said, grinned and rubbed her chin as she watched Marisa while floating slightly above her.

"Ready for what?" Marisa asked as she looked at Mima.

"To be put to a test. I myself have no intelligence regarding immortality research, but I can give you a bit more time to figure it out by yourself. And that will benefit the both of us," Mima said and giggled a bit. She then floated towards the door of Marisa's house and flew straight through it. It took a few seconds and Mima opened a door while carrying something on her hands.

"I didn't just slack the whole time I was away. I planned for our attack against the shrine and had to pick carefully your next body," Mima said and dropped the rigid body from her hands in front of Marisa.

"My new... body?" Marisa asked with confused look on her face as she looked at the body of a young girl before her feet.

"That's right. It took me a quite while to choose the right one, but I'm quite sure that this'll do," Mima said and shrugged her shoulders. Marisa then stood up from the couch slowly and kneeled next to the body and poked it gently. The girl was only eleven years old at the most.

"It was pain trying to get my hands on to her, but when I finally got I made her body go rigid so it would be damaged and then removed the old soul from it. It is basically just an empty husk. We'll move your soul from your old body to this one. You will retain all your magical skills and intelligence once you switch bodies. Basically you get an extra life," Mima explained the reason behind the body.

"A red hair... Couldn't you find anything... well, better?" Marisa asked after she had examined the body on the floor.

"If you don't find it to your liking then be my guest and wither away like a mere human," Mima responded with serious look on her face.

"Can you get yourself a sense of humor?" Marisa then responded and held her back while standing up. Mima just sighed and shook her head.

"So how are we oing to do this?" Marisa then continued and sat down to her couch again.

"You're impatient, aren't you," Mima said and tilted her head while looking at Marisa.

"I have to be. I bet that you would be too if you knew that you only had most likely few years, maybe not even that to live," Marisa said and coughed a bit.

"A fair point. I sometimes forget how fragile you humans are," Mima responded, flew towards the body, picked it up and lowered it on top of the table after swiping some of Marisa's notes away.

"I've brought my own notes of a certain spell that we'll use to transfer your soul from body to body. I will do this for you only once. After that you have to know how to do it yourself. I'll also teach you how to prepare the bodies for the usage of this spell," Mima said and pulled a heap of papers from her robes. Marisa was just about to take a look at the papers, but before she could Mima continued, "There is also one rule you must follow while using this spell. When you're planning to use it, the body which you're about to take over has to be well prepared. You can perform this spell as often as you want, but if you do it too hastily and take over a body that still had the original soul housed within it you will become trapped to that body. Technically you could take over any body you ever wanted any time you wanted even if it housed a soul or not, but if you do that your own soul will become fused with the old soul. The effects of the spell dictate that your personality wont change in the process, but once it has been done the old soul that has been pushed aside becomes binded to the body and your current soul becomes binded to that old soul. In the other words it becomes this chain of souls that can be broken only by dying." Marisa just looked at Mima for a moment, nodded and then took a look at the notes. She read through them quite quickly before putting them to the table.

"And performing this spell doesn't strip me from my humanity?" Marisa asked with careful look on her face.

"No, it should not," Mima responded with reassuring tone.

"Then what are we waiting for? We get this over with so I can help you with your 'scheme'," Marisa said while looking at the body on the table.

"Okay then, lay down and I'll perform the spell," Mima said and took her staff from her robes. Marisa did as Mima instructed and layed down. Mima then grabbed her staff with her both hands and mumbled something. Marisa just closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she waited. But once twenty seconds had passed and she had felt nothing she got impatient.

"So are you going to perform the spell or not?" Marisa asked while still keeping her eyes shut.

"Wh- oh, I suppose the spell is kinda subtle but I'd wager that you'd at least feel something," Mima said and shrugged her shoulders. Marisa then opened her eyes and looked at Mima who was howering above her with smug grin on her face.

"Wha-," Marisa mumbled, but once she realized how different her own voice was she stopped and sat up. She looked at her hands at first, touched her own face and then looked at the couch. She saw her old body laying there. She quickly hopped off from the table to see how well she could move around in her new body.

"So, how is it?" Mima asked and floated beside Marisa.

"Heh... heheheh... hahahaaa! I can't remember the last time I was this full of energy," Marisa yelled and immediately summoned a fireball between her hands, but didn't shoot it because that would have been foolish inside her own house.

"By the way what are you going to do with your old body?" Mima asked with curious look on her face as she flew around Marisa who was utterly enthused by her new body.

"I'll just burn it... heh... might have to try it out immediately," Marisa responded and her expression turned from enthused to a grim smile. Marisa then grabbed her old body and started dragging it towards the door of her house. It was heavier than she had expected. She hadn't gotten used to the fact that her new body was a one of a mere child. Mima just watched with curious grin on her face how Marisa dragged her old body outside. Once she had dragged it about ten meters away from her house she quickly gathered some wood and placed the logs around the body.

"Heh, I haven't been able to test my abilities too much after I got old... Luckily I don't have to worry about that anymore. Now then let's see what I'm capable of," Marisa muttered to herself as Mima watched how she went inside her house to retrieve her wand and as soon as she returned she summoned a runic pentagram between her hands, muttered some random spell and unleashed a massive, thundering lightining at her old body. A massive explosion followed which lit the surroundings on fire. Luckily they weren't too close to the forest so the fire died out quickly.

"Hah! Your shrine maiden is as good as dead now," Marisa laughed out loud once she saw the destruction her spell had caused. Her old body had been disintegrated and only thing that remained was a scorched crater on the ground.

"You're awfully frivolous about about killing that shrine maiden. At this rate you wont stay as a normal human for too long," Mima said while looking at pretentious looking Marisa on the ground.

"I'll have you know that your 'ordinary Marisa' is a long lost memory. From now on I'll have to start calling myself 'the mighty witch of the forest'. Hmm, but I oughta look the part before that," Marisa said while looking at the rags she was currently wearing.

"Tell you what, I'll come back tomorrow or the day after that. You can finish your... cosmetic needs and after that get Gensokyo's new era strated. Don't let me down on this...," Mima said before disappearing into thin air.

"Hah! Now when I have overcome my aging there's nothing I can't do," Marisa yelled after Mima even if she was sure that she couldn't hear her anymore. Marisa then returned to her house and skimmed through the notes Mima had left for her. There were specific instructions on how to perform that body switching spell and how to prepare one for that spell.

"It may be wise to always have a body ready. You can't possibly know when I might need a quick get away from this... ginger...," Marisa muttered while looking at a tuft of her own hair she was holding between her fingers.

"But I can worry about that later. Now then what kind of clothes should I use... They have to make it clear that I'm a witch... something that would cast fear into the hearts of those unlucky enough to cross me...," Marisa thought to herself and soon started drifting away in her thoughts. She wanted to be recognized as a true magician from now on.

A few days passed like Mima had told before she appeared onto Marisa's yard once again. This time she looked much more serious than the last time she had visited. She floated through Marisa's door and inside her house.

"Marisa are you home?" Mima asked while looking around herself in Marisa's house. Marisa soon came down from the upstairs to see if Mima was finally ready to attack the Hakurei shrine.

"Is it finally time for me to fulfill my end of our bargain?" Marisa asked with energetic spark in her eyes. Marisa was currently wearing her new robes. They were completely purple. She had a big hat with white bow and yellow moon ornament tied to it.

"Yes, the preparations are done. I've gathered some allies to get the shrine maiden into moving. She is sure to investigate the situation. Once she is lured into a trap we will take care of the rest," Mima said without explaining her plan any further.

"Allies huh? You're not confident in my or even your own skills are'ya?" Marisa asked with playful grin on her face with her arms crossed.

"I used the word ally in a lack of a better term. They are more like pawns for us. I sparked the ambition in few youkai and even humans to cause some havoc around the shrine and made sure that everything would point at me being the culprit," Mima said and smiled a little proudly.

"Sooo, what now? We just wait here for her to show up and beat her here?" Marisa then asked while shrugging her shoulders. She really didn't care about what was Mima's exact plan or her goal. She just wanted to be over with it so she could get back to her research.

"No. I'll create a portal to Remaiden, that's where I can achieve my full power and where we'll defeat the shrine maiden," Mima said, took out her wand that had a crescent moon on its tip and made a circle to the air by moving the wand. The circle then filled with energy and finally ignited into a portal.

"Now walk through the portal and prepare yourself. It wont take too long till we'll see what you're made of," Mima said and gestured Marisa to enter the portal. Marisa just nodded and entered. Mima followed her and as soon as they had gone through the portal Mima closed it behind themselves. Marisa looked around herself. It was weird. The ground below herself was completely made of some black smooth stone and the sky was at least as black as the ground. Only a dim sun-like orb could be seen shining in the far distance.

"This is Remaiden, the outermost part of Makai and the place where the shrine maiden will certainly end up. Come, this way," Mima then said and flew towards some blue tower that could be seen in the distance on a slope of a mountain. Once they reached the top of the tower Mima stopped and landed to its roof.

"You may wanna conjure up all your power right here and now. This is the place where you'll face the shrine maiden," Mima said and looked at Marisa with strict look on her face.

"Thought you'd never ask...," Marisa said and cracked a sinister grin to her face. She then crouched a little tensed all the muscles in her hands and started reciting some spell. She then stretched her arms to her sides and almost like pulled four orbs into existence out from nowhere. She then turned towards Mima and and grinned. Mima could feel the raw energy flowing around Marisa. It was really unrefined and crude, but the sheer amount of the energy made her to grin.

"Impressed? I've never been in a duel before so I had to come up with a completely new spell for this fight," Marisa said and demontrated her power by shooting bunch of magical missiles from her hands. Each missile was accompanied by four additional bullets shot by each of the orbs. Basically every time she shot something the orbs would shoot too. They also created a powerful aura around Marisa that protected her from any magical attack thrown at her.

"It seems that you're more than prepared yourself. That's good...," Mima said with pleased look on her face and chuckled a bit. She then lifted her gaze from Marisa and looked into the horizon and the look on her face switched from pleased to serious.

"Ah the shrine maiden has finally reached this world. You can feel the aura too, wont you?" Mima asked while looking into distance.

"Yeah," Marisa simply replied and grinned though she couldn't feel any aura.

"It wont take more than a few minutes at the most for her to reach this place," Mima said took off from the roof and started floating around the edges of the roof like searching for her opponent. Marisa just simply waited with her arms crossed. She was itching to prove herself for Mima. They had to wait for a moment till they finally got their first glimpse at the shrine maiden who was approaching them. They saw how some figure shot a barrage of projectiles at the small fry that happened to get between her and the tower.

"She seems pissed," Marisa said while scratching her hair and looking at the shrine maiden in the distance.

"Wont help her even a slightest bit," Mima responded and floated over the edge of the roof of that tower.

"Where are you going?" Marisa then asked and peeked over the edge.

"To greet our guest here. It would be rude to kill someone without even a proper introduction. You just wait here. You'll know when to barge in," Mima said and chuckled a bit. Marisa just tilted her head a bit and then just looked in the distance how the shrine maiden was getting closer and closer all the time. Ultimately it didn't take too long till the shrine maiden reached the tower and started flying upwards towards the peak. It was then when Mima grinned a little, took flight and started descending down towards the shrine maiden. Marisa was just about to follow when Mima turned around and said, "Just hold on a moment, your moment will come soon enough. You'll know when," Mima then smirked and disappeared from Marisa's field of vision.

She sat down to the roof of that tower impatiently gnashing her teeth. While waiting for some sort of a sign to indicate her to go in she happened to hear a conversation from below her. She peeked over the edge of the roof of that tower and saw Mima and that shrine maiden talking.

"It's been a while, Reimu," Marisa heard Mima saying.

"Mima! Just as I thought," Marisa heard being replied. She assumed that this Reimu was the shrine maiden.

"As you thought?" Marisa heard a third voice asking. She couldn't recognize whose voice it was, but that wasn't important to her anyway.

"Sorry, I only just realized it now, but I always wanted to say that... Anyway, that's not important right now! Mima! You're the one who wrecked my shrine, aren't you," Marisa heard this Reimu girl yelling at her master with annoyingly indifferent tone.

"Oh, who cares about some cheap shrine in the middle of nowhere? My goal is to exact revenge on the entire human race," Marisa heard Mima responding to that flamboyant shrine maiden.

"Well, I suppose it's fine to dream big," Marisa heard Reimu responding. That girl was seriously getting on her nerves.

"However, there's no greater crime than insulting my shrine. I'm sealing you up, here and now," Marisa heard Reimu yelling with much more serious tone.

"Hm-hm, a challenge! ...But I'm afraid I just don't have the time. It's just a little longer until I'm completely restored! So, until then... please play with this one," Marisa heard Mima saying. It was then when she knew that it was her time to step in.

"See ya," Marisa heard Mima uttering when she passed her and saw her flying into distance.

"Hey, wait... damn it," Reimu groaned in frustration as she watched how Mima escaped from her. It was then when Marisa got a better look at the shrine maiden who called herself Reimu. She had purple hair with large red ribbon at the back of her head together with red hair tubes on her sidelocks. She also had pretty traditional shrine maiden's outfit with red hakama over a white kimono. However, Marisa was a bit surprised to see the shrine maiden riding an old looking giant turtle. However she didn't let this bother her too long.

"Okay, just leave it to Marisa," Marisa yelled with self confident grin on her face.

"Get out of my way," Reimu yelled back at her and looked like she was trying to just fly past her.

"You heard Lady Mima. She's too busy to deal with you right now. Just wait here and play with me for a little while. Although, I doubt she'd mind if I just defeated you here...," Marisa responded and cracked an ominous grin to her face.

"I wont lose to the likes of you," Reimu yelled straight back at Marisa and readied herself.

"Kyahahahahahahahaa," Marisa bursted out laughing after hearing Reimu's threat.

"M'lady, control yourself! She is a formidable opponent," The turtle suddenly spoke up. Marisa was surprised to hear that it could talk.

"I'll calm down once I've beaten her," Reimu yelled and charged at Marisa. Marisa just grinned selfconfidently and readied her orbs that started to circle around her creating a protective barrier. Reimu charged at her with her charms and needles shooting them at Marisa, but the barrier stopped them just like Marisa had planned. She smirked a little and unleashed her own projectiles at Reimu. She felt excited. She hadn't battled anyone with magic ever before. She was going to show this shrine maiden the true extend of her powers. Marisa charged at Reimu, laughing while doing so. However the quickness and agility of that old turtle surprised Marisa. It was able to navigate through Marisa's attacks without braking a sweat. It was annoying how that duo just dodged everything she threw at them. She then made the orbs flying around her to charge at the turtle and Reimu while she herself kept firing magical projectiles at them. It was then when first one of her orbs broke and exploded. Marisa didn't let this bother her. She knew that if she wanted to win she just had to make her attacks more intense. That in mind she gathered her three remaining orbs and started charging at Reimu trying to knock her off from the turtle. However even if she put all her effort into that attack the turtle was still able to keep reimu safe from her attacks. Marisa was getting really frustrated and the fact that second of her orbs broke didn't help at all. She then stopped, conjured a purple flame from her palms and started firing purple shooting stars at the shrine maiden. She saw that the turtle started having hard time dodging, but somehow it still stayed clear from Marisa's attacks. Marisa then yelped a little when she heard her third orb exploding behind her. At this point Marisa realized that the shrine maiden wasn't as easy target as she had thought. She was starting to fear that she might lose, but still kept attacking. She charged the power of her remaining orb and focused it to her attacks, but just when she thought that it would be enought to hit Reimu the last orb circling around her exploded leaving her defensless. Marisa was shocked by this but snapped out of it really quickly. As her last resort she pulled out her wand, charged it and her whole body started emitting purple flames. She then lifted her hand with fury burning in her eyes and readied herself.

"BURN IN VIOLET," She yelled as she unleashed her final attack at Reimu. Huge barrage of purple, flaming shooting stars were directed at the shrine maiden. The turtle did its best to keep the shrine maiden safe, but ultimately one of Marisa's comets managed to slip past the turtle's guard and hit Reimu. Reimu yelped in pain, but managed to hold on to the turtle's back. Once she had recovered she conjured up one of her Yin-Yang Orbs that started to glow with bright light. Marisa looked at it with confused look on her face, but had no time to react when it exploded with unimaginably bright light wiping out all of Marisa's projectiles and finishing off Marisa herself. Once the explosion had cleared Marisa could just hold her head and utter, "Lady Mima, I'm sorry," before passing out and falling to the ground.

Marisa wasn't sure for how long she had been unconscious when she started to wake up. When she had finally fully regained her consciousnes she just held her head. She had a major headache, but she soon forgot about it when she touched the ground below her. She felt grass.

"What the...?" She uttered when she saw where she was. She had been laying on the Hakurei shrine's backyard. She stood up and looked around herself in confusion.

"H-how did I end up here? The shrine maiden... Did Mima beat her?" Marisa thought to herself while scratching her hair. She figured that only way to find out was to search the shrine. She took her hat and pressed it on top of her head and started walking towards the shrine. She opened the door and walked in. The shrine wasn't too big so it didn't take long till she had checked every room.

"Huh? No one here," Marisa muttered and walked towards the front door of that shrine to search the frontyard. As soon as she opened the door she saw Reimu sitting on the terrace and drinking tea with blissful look on her face.

"Ah, you've woken up," Reimu said with indifferent tone after taking a quick look at Marisa who was looking at Reimu.

"Where's Mima, how did I end up here?" Marisa retorted with annoyed look on her face while looking at the person who had just recently defeated her.

"Well after I had sealed her sorry ass I decided to come back for you. I thought that since you're just a normal human you wouldn't have means to get back home. Makai isn't place for humans you know," Reimu responded and took a sip from her tea. Marisa just sqeezed her hands to a fists in anger and clenched her teeth. She then just simply walked past Reimu and took flight.

"Where are you headed? Would you mind staying for some tea?" Reimu asked playfully and giggled a little, but Marisa wasn't in a mood for jokes. She jusk ignored Reimu and flew towards her own house.

"Strange and romantic is fate, no?" Reimu yelled after Marisa but Marisa didn't bother to respond in her anger.

"Pffft, strange and romantic my ass," Marisa hissed from between her teeth.

"Just a normal human!? I'll show you the normal human once I've taken revenge on YOUR sorry ass and broken Mima's seal," Marisa muttered to herself in anger while flying towards her home. She couldn't comprehend that Mima, her mentor had actually lost to that shrine maiden and was currently being sealed away by her. It was supposed to be easy to just beat and kill that shrine maiden, but in the end both of them had failed.

"If open combat doesn't work then I have to come up with something new," Marisa muttered to herself as she was starting to get closer to her home. When she finally reached it she entered immediately. She rummaged through all the possible things she had in her shelfs.

"I gotta have something useful in here... Something that would prove to be lethal in right hands... In my hands," Marisa muttered while pushing her research notes away, but all she could find were some old magic tomes from the time when she was still just a novice and could cast only the simplest of spells. Once she realized that she didn't have anything useful at hand she just sighed and leaned against her shelf. But after she did this she happened to look to her left where she saw a black spider skittering on one of her sheets of paper.

"Well hello there," Marisa uttered and the look on her face lightened up immediately. She then quickly went to her kitchen and retrieved a glass urn with a wooden cork. She returned to the spider, approached it slowly and caught it in the glass urn. She then closed it with the cork. She looked at the spider in the urn carefully. It was a black widow spider just as she had thought. She put the urn to her table, returned to the kitchen and took a knife from her drawer. She returned to the urn and cut few holes to the cork so the spider wouldn't suffocate.

"I really need to visit the village for some new supplies, but I need to make this new little fella comfortable first," Marisa thought to herself and scratched her chin. Then she happened to remember all the annoying flies between her windows. Marisa cracked a playful grin to her face as she opened one of her windows ajar and caught as many flies as she could. She then walked back to her table, removed the cork carefully and tossed the flies in as fast as she could, because the spider didn't seem to be happy about its imprisonment.

"Easy there," Marisa uttered after she had closed the urn again and swiped the sweat from her forehead. The spider had almost bitten her when she had given it the flies.

"Don't you worry. I'll get you a proper home once I have the time, but for now you have to stay in there," Marisa said like the spider could understand her. She then took a bag from the floor and headed out from her house. She really needed to do some shopping if she wanted to get even with Reimu. She took flight immediately and headed towards the human village. She was planning to buy some ingredients, but also some food. She hadn't done any casual shopping in a long time, so it was a high time for that too.

"How should I do this? Poison? Get her to kill herself with some good old hallucinogens? Now when I have that black widow, might as well use it to my advantage. In the end stabbing is so messy and has no grace in it at all," Marisa thought to herself as she was starting to get close to the village. Once she reached she simply landed to the road and approached the gate. She immediately saw how most of those people who saw her were confused and a little scared when they saw a small girl landing in the middle of a road that led to the village. She knew that they couldn't immediately tell if she was a youkai or not. She hadn't visited the village in her new body yet.

"They'll soon realize that I'm as much human as they are," Marisa thought to herself, shrugged her shoulders and waltzed right through the gate with confident look on her face. Once she entered the village and reached the market place she navigated her way to her favourite herb merchant where she always got all her ingredients. She looked through what the merchant had to offer while most of the people were looking at her with confused looks on their faces. Once Marisa was done bying herbs she headed for the food shops. But on her way to buy some food she overheard two women talking to each other.

"First that youkai changeling and now this... whatever she is, comes to the village likes she owns the place. Soon we will be over run by youkai," The other woman said.

"Well this one looks human to me, but you're right. Things are getting out of hand. I swear, either that woman is a total fool, youkai sympathizer or one of _**THOSE**_ who wants to get themselves too deeply involved with youkai if you know what I mean," The other replied.

"You think she would get herself involved in such ungodly deed? I admit that she pretty confidently claims that the kid is her own, but aren't you stretching it a little too far," The first one asked with a bit shocked tone.

"That or the child is a changeling. It really doesn't matter to me though," The other woman replied with morose tone. After the woman had said that both of them walked into one of the buildings. Marisa on the other hand stood there for a moment and thought what she had just heard.

"Youkai changeling? That might be interesting," Marisa said and cracked a thoughtful smile to her face before continuing towards the food shop.

It was already evening when Marisa was finally returning home. She had bought a glass terrarium for her new pet. She had to make sure that a creature of such rarity wouldn't die. It took a quite long time for her to get back home because of all the stuff she was carrying, but eventually she reached her door. After stepping inside and laying all the stuff she had bought to her table she took the terrarium and placed it next to the glass urn.

"Seems like a good size," Marisa said and headed out to get some dirt to make the terrarium more aesthetic. While doing so she also grabbed few plants and some stones so that her spider would feel like home. She then returned to her house and prepared the terrarium, but before she would let the spider to its new home she had to do one certain thing she had planned while returning home. She took some of the herbs she had bought and her alchemy stand. She smashed, grounded, boiled and distilled some liquids she extracted from the herbs until she nodded with satisfied look on her face. She then took the liquid and poured it into a spray bottle. She then shook it a little and sprayed some of it to the glass urn through the holes on the cork. It didn't take even a minute until the spider fell asleep and Marisa could take it out without fear of getting bitten. She layed the spider carefully to her table and took a pair forceps and a tiny bottle. She then started carefully extracting the venom from the spiders fangs. She managed to extract only handful of drops of that venom, but it was enough for her. She then took the spider and put it into the terrarium where it would wake up in about ten minutes or so. Marisa looked at the venom in the tiny bottle and grinned mischeviously.

"Let's see how well you can dodge this, Reimu," Marisa said while looking at the lethal substance in the bottle. It was late evening, but she wasn't going to go to sleep yet. It was perfect time to gather some ingredients and herbs from the forest that you couldn't find from any shopkeeper from the human village. Marisa put the tiny bottle to one of her drawers, put her groceries and herbs where they belonged and headed out into the misty and gloomy evening.

She didn't need to stray too far away from her house. Just about couple hundred meters from her house there was this meadow where it grew bunch of those rare herbs she could only find during this time of the evening. She headed there and started gathering the herbs. She hadn't really thought to what purpose she would use them, but it was always good to hoard some for just in case you needed them some day. She kept gathering them from the meadow until she heard a strange rustling noise from behind her.

"A youkai? If it is thinking about eating me then there's gonna be a very nasty surprise for it...," Marisa thought to herself, put her basket to the ground and turned around to see what had caused to sound. To her surprise it wasn't a youkai, but a human girl. A small human girl, about her current size who was wearing a really strange looking clothes.

"You don't look like a youkai to me," Marisa said, grinned and crossed her arms over her chest. The girl looked at her with frightful look on her face and came few steps closer. It was then when Marisa saw that the girl's hair was blonde. It was quite rare sight to see in Gensokyo.

"C-can you please tell me where I am? I have no idea myself. I was just having an evening walk when I tripped over and rolled down a hill to the forest. The next thing I remember is how I woke up from here," The girl said while looking around herself with frightful look on her face.

"Oh, you wouldn't happen to be one of those gappies that appear in Gensokyo every now and then, would you?" Marisa asked with a bit more interested look on her face.

"W-what's Gensokyo?" The girl asked with a bit confused look on her face.

"The place where you currently are. You're a long way from home," Marisa said and grinned mischeviously.

"Oh no. Can you at least show me a place where I could spend the night? I really wouldn't want to sleep on open," The girl asked with nervous look on her face.

"Sure thing, but the human village is quite far away from here. It'll already be night when you reach it so why wouldn't you spent the night in my place," Marisa suggested and grinned.

"Well if it isn't too far away and wont cause you any trouble, I suppose I could," The girl responded with a bit shy look on her face.

"Nah, it wont cause any trouble. Come, my house is just around the corner," Marisa said, picked up her basket and signed the girl to follow her while walking towards the house. The girl nodded and followed Marisa through the forest until they reached Marisa's house.

"This is where I live, make yourself at home," Marisa said, grinned and opened the door of her house. The girl walked inside and looked around herself with a bit confused look on her face. Marisa's house was full of papers lying around, some dusty books and other magical research material she had never seen before.

"Where are your parents?" The girl then asked with a bit careful tone, turned around and looked at Marisa who shut the door behind herself and put her herb basket to the table.

"Wh- oh. Well I truly look like I could have some, don't I?" Marisa said and laughed a bit.

"A-are you saying that you live here alone?" Girl asked with unbelieving look on her face.

"Yep, that I do." Marisa responded and started rummaging through a pile of papers she had on the floor.

"B-but you're just a kid like I am. You can't live on your own yet," The girl insisted and took a step backwards.

"Yeah, you're right. I may look like a one, but I assure you I've lived longer than you've lived. And besides, kids shouldn't take evening walks alone or they might get lost and end up in a witch's house," Marisa said while looking at a paper in her hands and then suddenly casted a spell at the girl. The girl yelped, covered her face and then turned as rigid as wood. Marisa then folded the paper and looked at the rigid girl on the ground.

"So, at least I know that Mima's spell works for sure," Marisa said, chuckled a bit and put the sheet of paper away that had the spell to prepare the body to be used later on.

"Tough luck...," Marisa said and dragged the girl's rigid body to her own room where it wouldn't get on her way.

"So if I have understood this correctly, the girl's body is still alive, but it is just an empty husk now. It should be ready for me to use when ever I want to or when I need to," Marisa said while rubbing her chin. She then put the girl's body to the corner of her room.

"Now then, tomorrow I will get my revenge on Reimu. I made some real progress today, so if I want to keep it on I may want have proper amount of sleep. Wouldn't want be tired tomorrow and screw something up," Marisa said with proud tone, stretched her arms a little and yawned. She then switched to her pajamas and went to sleep. She was chuckling with delight. Mima would be so proud of her when she would get her free. With these thoughts in her mind Marisa fell asleep in hopes of killing Reimu tomorrow.

Once the first rays of sun started to shine over the Forest of Magic Marisa was already high above the trees flying towards the shrine with one certain bottle in her pocket and grin on her face. She couldn't wait to see the look on the shrine maiden's face once she would realize what Marisa had done. Anticipation was killing her, but eventually she reached the shrine. She flew up the stairs and landed onto the torii that was serving as the gate to the shrine. She sat on top of the torii and looked down at the shrine. She saw Reimu sitting on the terrace and once again drinking tea.

"Seriously, does she do anything else than drink tea? Well I suppose it doesn't matter. Soon enough she wont do anything ever again," Marisa said, chuckled a bit and jumped down from the torii. She landed in the middle of the road leading to the shrine. Reimu lifted her gaze from her tea and looked at marisa who was walking towards her.

"So, this time you came here on your own?" Reimu said with blank look on her face and took a sip from her tea.

"Visiting at the shrine isn't forbidden now, is it," Marisa said with smug grin on her face and sat beside Reimu.

"I guess no. As long as the presence of the visitor causes no harm for anybody or anything," Reimu said without even looking at Marisa.

"You were so quick to offer me tea yesterday. It's quite rude to not offer some to your quests, now isn't it," Marisa said and smacked Reimu to her back playfully. Reimu just sighed, stood up and walked into her shrine.

"If you insist," She said when walking in to get a cup for Marisa. Marisa saw how Reimu left her own cup to the terrace. Marisa took the bottle she was carrying and and dumped its contents to Reimu's cup and then put the bottle back to her pocket. Reimu then returned to Marisa and layed down the cup and poured some tea for her. Marisa looked at her tea for a moment and then at Reimu.

"You wouldn't happen to have any sugar?" Marisa asked while looking at her tea.

"Gods you're one picky quest. If you want sugar, there's some in the shrine. You're gonna have to get it yourself this time though," Reimu said with a bit frustrated look on her face. Marisa then just shrugged her shoulders, stood up and walked into the shrine.

"A sweet victory needs some sugar to be sweet enough," Marisa thought to herself with dark grin on her face. She retrieved the sugar and returned to the terrace. She sat down where she had sat before and put a spoonful of sugar to her tea and took a sip. She then looked with the corner of her eye at Reimu who was holding her own cup in her hands and just looking at it.

"Come on drink already," Marisa thought to herself impatiently. Reimu then brought the cup closer to her mouth and was just about to take sip when she looked at Marisa and said, "I switched the cups you know," before taking a sip from the cup in her hands. Marisa's heart skipped a beat and she almost spat out the tea from her mouth, but she managed to maintain her calm, because she knew that she had already swallowed a bit so spitting the rest out wouldn't help.

"So? What were you trying accomplish with that?" Marisa asked and drank the rest of her tea even if it was poisoned.

"I guess nothing," Reimu said, shrugged her shoulders and drank her own tea with a smug smile on her face. Marisa could feel how her hands started shaking and one drop of sweat rolled down from her forehead.

"Well now, I t-thank you for your hospitality. I'll return to my own home," Marisa said without even looking at Reimu.

"Mind staying for another cup. There's still some left," Reimu asked and grinned a little, but Marisa didn't see it, because she had already taken off from the shrine grounds and was heading home as fast as she could. Reimu could just chuckle on her own. It didn't take a seer to understand what Marisa was up to from the moment Reimu layed eyes on her. Reimu then just sighed blissfully and continued her morning tea.

Back at Marisa's house she had just reached her home and rushed through the door of her house. She was sweating all over while rushing through all her research material to get to her room.

"Argh! That crafty, despicable, sleazy, whore of a shrine maiden...," Marisa cursed to herself while slamming the door of her room open.

"She's so gonna get it one day...," Marisa kept muttering while she started to recite a spell with her hands shaking uncontrollably. She thought she was immensely lucky that she had come across that gappy girl yesterday. Otherwise she would have just enough time to write a testament. She then closed her eyes finished reciting the spell and really hoped that she hadn't messed it up. She then swiped her forehead only to find that it was dry again. She opened her eyes and found herself from sitting in the corner of her room. She then quickly touched her legs and arms just to make sure she had truly succeeded. Once she was sure that her consciousness had been moved from body to another she finally sighed for relief and just sat there for a moment. Her hands were still shaking a little, but not because of poison, but because of the shock. She had never come so close to actually dying. Once she had caught her breath she stood up and looked at her now dead previous body on the floor.

"I need to be more careful from here on out. I wont have a new body each time I end up in a similiar situation. I was lucky this time," Marisa said and started removing her clothes from her old body. There was no need to burn them together with the old body. Once she had changed her clothes and gotten used to the new body that oddly enough seemed to be both handed instead of right or left she took her old body and carried it outside. She carried the body to the same spot where she had destroyed her original body, but this time instead of exploding it, she just lit it aflame and watched it burn for a moment until the smell of burning flesh and guts got unbearable. She then returned inside her house and sat in front of her table where she had her terrarium. She looked how her pet spider feasted on a fly.

"Guess I'll have to name you at some point if I'm planning to keep you," Marisa muttered while watching her spider who didn't seem to even notice that it was trapped.

"You're black and shiny as pearl... so how about Lulu? If I remember correctly it meant pearl in some language I just can't remember in which," Marisa said while staring at the spider. She then just smirked and touched a tuft of her new now blonde hair. She looked at it for a moment and then tied it to a plait.

"Hmm, better," Marisa muttered out loud and stood up. She then looked around herself and gathered some of the sheets of paper and looked at them. She could continue her research on immortality now, but she didn't feel like it. For some reason she didn't have any motivation to do any research. She just put the papers away and rubbed her chin. She knew that she would need to think of a new scheme to get a revenge on Reimu, but now when she knew that it wasn't as easy as she had thought she knew that she had to plan her next move more carefully.

"I could return to the shrine and just observe her from distance to get some insight on her movements and personality, but... meh, don't feel like doing anything today. I must be tired from changing the bodies. I'm just gonna take the rest of the day off and try again tomorrow," Marisa muttered to herself and shrugged her shoulders. She then looked at the clock on her wall.

"Might as well go outside and get used to the new body a bit better. Staying inside is boring anyway so might as well...," Marisa said and walked through her front door.

The day passed by without any other major events disturbing Marisa nor Reimu and both of them continued with their daily lives Marisa collecting mushrooms and herbs from the forest and Reimu tending her shrine. But eventually the evening came and Marisa returned home to sleep. She had decided to return to the shrine tomorrow and tell Reimu about the youkai changeling she had heard about in the village expecting that Reimu hadn't heard about it yet. It would give her some valuable insight on how she would react to that which she could later use to plan her next move against Reimu. This was Marisa's plan when she went to sleep. The day had been pretty full of drawbacks for her, but she had already put most of them behind herself and was now focusing onto tomorrow and her plan.

The tomorrow came and Reimu was waking up when the first rays of sun shone through the paper walls of the shrine.

"Another uneventful day incoming...," Reimu muttered to herself while covering her eyes with her hand. She rolled in her bed for about twenty minutes until she finally got herself to get up and dress herself. She headed to her kitchen for her regular morning tea, but sighed in frustration to find out that she had run out of tea leaves.

"How troublesome... I'm so not in the mood to visit the village today," Reimu bridled to herself with annoyed look on her face. She then just walked lazily towards the back of her shrine. She was gonna feed her turtle, Genji before she would head to the village to buy more tea leaves. She grabbed some food that she left for Genji every morning and opened the back door of the shrine, but was surprised to find that Genji was already being fed. Marisa was sitting on the bank of Genji's bond and giving Genji pieces of bread she had taken with her.

"Sigh* What are you doing here today?" Reimu asked from Marisa without taking a closer look at her new appearance

"Decided to visit your turtle. Not many of them can speak let alone fly," Marisa responded with smug grin on her face, stood up and shrugged her shoulders. It was then when Reimu saw how different Marisa looked from the yesterday. She took a step closer with suspicious look on her face and looked at Marisa for a while.

"If I'm not mistaken you had red hair yesterday. How come your hair colour and face changed over night," Reimu asked with strict tone and tilted her head a little.

"That's the secret of the great witch of the forest, Marisa," Marisa responded with self confident grin on her face and hands on her pelvis. Reimu looked at her for a moment silently, but then decided to leave the matter alone. She could very clearly sense that Marisa was the same person, but the fact that she looked very different from the yesterday kept Reimu on her toes.

"You know there's no point trying to poison Genji. He's pretty much immune when it comes to toxins," Reimu said with unamused look on her face and arms crossed over her chest.

"So is every time I visit the shrine now concidered an attempted murder?" Marisa asked and laughed a little.

"Pretty much. After our little tea party," Reimu said without changing the look on her face.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Marisa said and tried look as innocent as she could.

"Anyway, it's early in the morning, I have work to do and you're interfering me. Mind leaving the shrine grounds now?" Reimu asked with clearly annoyed look on her face.

"How rude. I didn't come here to annoy you, ya' know. I actually had a reason this time," Marisa said with that self confident look still on her face.

"And what might that be?" Reimu asked with strict tone and look on her face.

"Have you heard the news? There's a supposed youkai changeling in the human village. I don't know much about it, but as far as I know some woman claims to have given birth to a youkai, although most of the other humans think that it is a changeling," Marisa said while leaning against Genji's green shell. Reimu didn't bother asking for further details and instead she rushed back into her shrine, took her purification rod and took flight after rushing through her front door. Marisa saw her heading towards the human village and decided to follow her.

"Now then, that was faster than I thought. Let's see how this turns out," Marisa said with a slight grin on her face after taking off to follow Reimu. It didn't take long for them to reach the human village and as soon they did Marisa saw Reimu landing and immediately asking from some man who was this woman who supposedly had a youkai kid. Marisa landed too and chased reimu while still keeping low profile. As soon as Reimu got to know where this supposed youkai kid was living she immediately headed for that house. Marisa kept following her and soon realised that other humans had become interested in shrine maiden's actions too. Everyone wanted to see what was gonna happen next. Once Reimu reached the house she immediately knocked to the door while a group of people were watching eagerly. It took a moment, but eventually a man came to open and saw Reimu staring at him with serious look on her face.

"Oh dear," The man uttered when he saw Reimu. Reimu didn't bother to ask for a permission to enter the building. She just pushed the man aside and headed inside. The man then quickly closed the door behind himself and Reimu to prevent all the unwanted people getting in. Marisa on the other hand wanted to see what was going on so she took flight from the middle of the group and flew to the roof of the neighbour building. From there she could see and hear what was going on in the up stairs where reimu headed.

"B-who? No one was supposed to tell to shrine maiden about this," Marisa could hear a woman saying from the inside.

"You should know that it is foolish and even punishable at some cases to allow youkai to roam freely the human village and keep the shrine maiden oblivious about it," Marisa heard Reimu's strict voice saying.

"My baby hasn't romaed freely in any place. As her mother it is my duty to ensure her safety," The woman's voice responded.

"And it is my duty to keep the humans of the human village safe. You know the rules," Reimu responded with really unamused tone.

"Well the rules must be changed in that case. If you want to kill my own child you must first get through me," The woman replied. She was clearly scared for her and her child's life.

"The kid isn't yours to begin wi-," Reimu said, but was quickly interrupted by the man, "Miss shrine maiden, she's telling the truth. She hasn't left the human village once during the last three years and I myself witnessed the birth of our daughter. I don't know how, but she's a youkai. I've accepted it and I'm ready to raise her nonetheless."

"It's all true. I would never be able to cheat on my husband and I can't even imagine how people could think I could do something like that with a youkai. If I did, I would be so ashamed that I couldn't return to human village," The woman continued while clearly trying to keep herself from crying. It was then when they accidentally woke up the youkai baby and it started crying almost immediately. Marisa stopped to listen for a while. It sounded more human than she had thought. She had thought that the cry of a youkai would sound more like a roar than a actual human crying. It appeared that she was mistaken. Apart from the crying it was really quiet inside. No one uttered even a single word.

"I'm gonna regret this, aren't I," Reimu said, sighed and put her purification rod away.

"Fine, I'll overlook this for now. But if she shows any signs of normal youkai behavior she'll be banished from the village," Reimu said before walking out from the room but just before walking through the door she stopped, turned around and asked, "By the way, does she have a name yet?"

"Yes. Me and my husband have decided to name our child Rumia," The woman replied with grattitude. Reimu just smirked and then exited the building. The crowd was still there waiting to hear what had happened. When Reimu exited the building the whole crowd surrounded her and started asking about the youkai child.

"I gave them a chance to raise the child as a normal human, but if anything out of ordinary happens she'll be banished from the village," Without saying anything else Reimu pushed her way through the crowd and started walking towards the main gate. The crowd on the other hand was really shocked that Reimu let that youkai go, but after hearing the cry of that child she couldn't do anything else. She couldn't have exterminated a child, was it youkai or not. She just quickly escaped the people to get back to the shrine. She wasn't in the mood to do any shopping but when she was passing one house a familiar voice could be heard from its terrace.

"I thought you'd exterminate her as soon as you'd lay eyes on her," Marisa's taunting voice said as she moved her hat a bit revealing her mischevious grin. Reimu just glared at her and kept walking without uttering a single word.

"So a youkai gets mercy from the shrine maiden but when she encounters a human witch she'll exterminate the human without hesitation," Marisa taunted while running after her.

"Are you so stupid that you'd compare yourself to that youkai? Let's say that you'd been a youkai magician. You wouldn't be around anymore after our first enounter so don't you say that I didn't show you mercy," Reimu hissed from between her teeth before taking off and leaving Marisa behind.

"Soon you'll hope that you hadn't shown any mercy," Marisa thought to herself with her arms crossed over her chest with ominous grin on her face while watching how Reimu flew into the distance. She too then took off and headed towards her own home ready to come up with new plans to topple her now new rival.

First day and then weeks started to pass by with Marisa coming to the shrine about three to four times a week each time with a new plan or a scheme to take down reimu and brake Mima's seal. It became so regular that during the times when Reimu wasn't at her shrine when Marisa was coming to kill her again, Reimu had left usually something like a bottle of rat poison or one of her needles with a note that said, "Since I'm currently out and can't give you a beating feel free to drink the poison or stab yourself with a needle yourself. I have currently no time to witness your plan backfiring." Each time when that happened it irritated Marisa even more because it had only been the first plan that had backfired severly. The other plans she had tried to execute had just failed. Reimu had just seen through them or avoided them completely. But even if it was getting onto Marisa's nerves it still just kept fueling her ambition. But as she kept on inventing more and more absurd schemes and plans she started to forget why she had done all of this in the first place. She was starting to forget about Mima and her goal for immortality. It had actually gone so far that it was almost like a routine for her to go to the shrine and cause a ruckus there, and to some extend she had started take a liking to it too. One day she went as fas as to send an apology letter to Reimu because she had gotten slightly sick and had to stay in bed for one day. Although she used even that apology letter to try to kill Reimu, but without succeeding. She had hidden a small bag bomb inside the letter that would explode releasing poisonous gas to the area. But unfortunately the bomb was big enough to be felt through the paper and even dipping the thing in the water could disarm it.

However just when it had started to get routine like for Marisa it all changed one day when she was once again visiting the shrine. She was flying up the stairs like usual and once she got to the top she landed onto the torii to see if Reimu was anywhere to be seen. Today was like any other day so she was expecting Reimu to maybe rake some leaves or have some tea, but she didn't expect to find her kicking one of the pillars of her shrine. This got her curious and to forget about her scheme of the day. She flew down to the ground to see what Reimu was doing.

"Yo! What's wrong with the pillar?" Marisa asked while walking towards Reimu.

"Jeez, should have figured you would come right now," Reimu bridled and kicked the pillar one more time.

"What wrong did that thing do to you? Did a fairy or youkai maybe take residence in it?" Marisa asked with curious look on her face.

"No, it's the exact opposite," Reimu responded and leaned against her knees while sitting on her terrace.

"Mind explaining?" Marisa asked and tilted her head.

"Well your master, Mima was sealed inside that pillar and just this morning she managed to break through the seal. In the other words she escaped," Reimu said and sighed in frustration. Marisa's eyes widened immediately. She had completely forgotten about Mima. Immediately when she heard that Mima was free again she forgot all about her plan for today, took off and headed for the Forest of Magic without saying a word.

"Where are you headed. Aren't you gonna try to execute your plan or something," Reimu then asked with a bit surprised tone and look on her face while watching how Marisa flew into distance. Marisa didn't hear this because she was already too far away and focused onto her new goal, to find Mima now when she was free again. She assumed that the mostlikely place where she would find her would be the Forest of Magic so that was the first place where she started looking. She kept searching through the forest whole day starting from her house, but couldn't find a single trace of her from the forest itself nor from its surroundings. Eventually the day turned to evening and Marisa had to return home. She had thought that finding Mima was easy task but she hadn't seen even a single trace of her.

It was already quite late evening when she finally got back to her home. She landed onto her yard and walked casually towards her door when she suddenly felt a familiar presence. It was Mima there was no doubt about it. Marisa rushed into her house and found Mima floating above her table skimming through Marisa's research material. She then looked at Marisa without expression.

"Having fun?" Mima asked with blank look on her face and dropped the notes to the ground.

"Mima! You don't even know how long I've tried to free you-," Marisa started but was quickly interrupted.

"Tried... I saw everything that happened around the shrine from my seal... Every failure you bred while trying to accomplish the simple task I gave you. The only thing I asked in return of my teachings... Seems like it was all to waste," Mima said and just floated through Marisa without saying more.

"Mima wait! I tried my best, I truly did! Let me try once more," Marisa tried to apologize to Mima for not getting her job done.

"No, I've seen enough. You know that you wont get it right the next time or any other time. I should have seen it right away. You would only lead to a disappointment. Our contract is over," Mima uttered before floating through the door of marisa's house.

"Please wait," Marisa yelled after Mima and ran through the door, but when she got to outside Mima was already gone. Marisa stood there for a moment just looking at the dark woods around her house.

"Mima! Come back," Marisa yelled once more into the darkness of cold evening. It had happened too fast for her to comprehend immediately what this all meant, but soon she started to realize just how much more difficult Mima leaving her had made her magic and immortality research. Truth be told all that she knew she had learned from Mima. Now that she was gone Marisa had no idea how to continue. It was also then when she realized that she had truly forgotten about Mima in her daily life while trying to outsmart Reimu. She had tried to kill her so hard that she had forgotten why she had tried to do it in the first place. However her research was currently the least of her worries because she had just lost the only person she had ever concidered being even close to a friend. Mima had technically speaking raised Marisa. She had ran away from home at such young age that she had no memories of her real parents. She then slowly returned to her house with still unbelieving look on her face.

"B-but I tried my best...," Marisa stuttered and one tear grew to her eye as she pulled the door shut behind herself. She just slowly slouched to her table and sat in front of her table while leaning against it with her elbows. She looked at a pile of those research papers on the table. The look on her face then turned from unbelieving to rage as she took the pile, ripped the papers to shread and then threw them to a corned of the room. She then curled to the floor and started sobbing. It took her a moment to get back up and sit onto a chair. She just looked at her terrarium for a moment. She looked at the beatifully glimmering spider web that weaved through and around the plants she had put into the terrarium to make more natural. Her pider was sitting there in the middle of the web. It had just finished eating a fly.

"I bet that you too would just want to get away from me, don't you," Marisa said while watching the black spider as it stared back at her. She then carefully opened the lid of that terrarium and let the spider to climb to her finger. She completely ignored the fact that it was poisonous and just let it sit on her hand. She then lowered her palm to the table.

"Go on then. I wont keep you from leaving," Marisa said and tried to let the spider free, but it just stood there on her hand.

"*Sigh Well at least you... didn't leave me," Marisa said, but in the middle of her sentence she remembered Reimu.

"Aw crap, what an asshole I am," Marisa then bridled and hit her head to her table in frustration. She had put Reimu through all her shit and now when Marisa finally was left alone she realized how selfish she had been. And how heartless. She hadn't realized that Reimu was still pretty much a kid. While she was just in a body of a one. And even after all that, after Marisa had tried to kill her countless of time she was to only one Marisa could say that she knew to a some extend.

"So much of that 'The Great Witch of the Forest' I suppose," Marisa said and sighed while putting her spider back to its terrarium. She didn't feel like wasting the evening or the next day trying to pick up on her research. She really well knew what she was going to do tomorrow. It had already been exhausting enough for her so she just wanted to get it over with. Without thinking it any further she headed to her room and went to sleep immediately. It had been tough day for her and she knew that tomorrow was going to be at least as tough for her.

The sun had already risen quite high when Reimu had finished her morning tea. The autumn was arriving so you could catch cold if you were to spend too much time on the outside during the morning. That's why Reimu had drunk her morning tea inside of her shrine.

"Should I just take a day off? I tidied the yard quite well yesterday, so if anyone wont come to the shrine today I might as well," Reimu thought to herself and stretched her arms a little. She was just about to lay down to a matress when she heard something from the outside. That sound was rare, but she could recognize the sound of something dropping to the donation box. She stood up immediately and headed to the front terrace. She opened the door and peeked outside. Strangely enough she didn't see anybody. She swore that she had heard something so she opened her donation box to take look. Once she peeked inside she wasn't going to believe her eyes. A chunk of solid gold was glimmering on the bottom of the box. She then looked around herself again to make sure that there truly wasn't anybody near the shrine. It was then when she saw a familiar figure leaning against one of those cherry trees. It was Marisa for certain. Reimu then looked at the chunk of gold again and put the lid on top of the box again.

"You know that gold doesn't really react with anything, don't you? So I'm pretty sure that it wont poison me or blow me up," Reimu asked with a slight grin on her face. Marisa however didn't respond. She just buried her face deeper under her hat. Reimu just kept looking at her with confused look on her face. However she didn't approach her because she had learned that Marisa's presence usually meant that she had once again come up with some scheme. But this time Marisa had nothing.

Reimu kept staring at Marisa for a little while until she opened her mouth again, "Hey, you alright? Your target is here," Reimu tried to say with playful tone but there still wasn't any kind of response. Marisa then just lifted her gaze from the ground and looked at Reimu with quilty look on her face. Reimu then carefully took few steps closer to Marisa to see what was wrong with her.

"Hey, you're not acting like yourself. What's wrong?" Reimu asked after she had walked a bit closer to Marisa.

"I-I just wanted to apologize," Marisa said while looking at the ground with still ashamed look on her face.

"Oh, so you truly are sick. Should I get some medici-," Reimu started joking but was quickly interrupted by Marisa, "No listen. You were right, I was wrong. I really should have been grateful for you after our first clash but my blind faith in Mima's teachings blinded me from that. Now I know better than to attach my self to youkai so strongly, because now I got what i deserved. Mima left me and without any connection to human village I have no one left. So I wanted to at least apologize for you my outrageous behavior," Marisa said while staring into Reimu's eyes who looked at Marisa with surprised and unbelieving look on her face.

"You do understand that a pecuniary atonement wont fix any of your problems-," Reimu started but Marisa was a bit too quick to react to that.

"Yes, I know, and I'll leave you be forever. I just wanted to compensate with something the wrongs I've done. I just don't want you to hate me," Marisa responded and was already ready to leave.

"I don't hate you nor have I ever hated. I just meant your own problems. Trying to compensate them to others wont help you personally. You're not evil person, I can see that clearly. You just think that you're beyond help and that only thing you can do is to make others believe that. You yourself have to realize and work your way out of it," Reimu said and grabbed Marisa from her shoulder. She turned around with unbelieving look on her face.

"And that's why I'm here," Reimu said and cracked a gentle smile to her face. Marisa just stared at Reimu, she was completely speechless.

"Come, I'll get you some tea and you can tell me everything that's clouding your mind," Reimu said and pulled the baffled Marisa with her to the shrine. She got Marisa some tea and then they sat to the centre of the shrine. There Marisa told Reimu everything. That she was basically raised by Mima, what kind of a deal they had had, that she was doing it all because of her immortality research and finally how Mima had left her after she had broken free. Only thing she didn't tell to Reimu was how Mima had taught her to take over bodies and that she had done it twice already. She didn't dare for she couldn't know how Reimu would have reacted. Once she was finished both of them just sat there quietly. Marisa just stared at her tea cup and waited how Reimu would respond to all of this. She was happy and scared at the same time now when she had been able to tell all of this to somebody who had ears to listen.

"Hey Marisa, do you know the real reson why I got you back from Makai when we first met when i could have just left you there?" Reimu then asked while looking at still a bit embarrassed Marisa.

"I've been wondering that myself, but I have no idea," Marisa responded. She still didn't dare to look Reimu to her eyes.

"The job of the shrine maiden is to help the humans to stay on the path of humanity. When one strays from that path it's shrine maiden's duty to get him or her to turn back. And we're not allowed to stray from that goal as long as there's hope left for that human. Only when there's no turning back will there be an extermination. That's why I spared you. You've strayed away from the path of raighteousness but you can still be pulled back. I was truly afraid that you would turn to youkai at some point and then I would have needed kill you. Native human of Gensokyo is not to be allowed to turn into youkai by any means," Reimu explained with serious look on her face. Marisa just gulped a little. She very well knew how much magic was stored within her body.

"But don't worry. I'm not trying to get you to move to human village and leave your research behind. I'm just asking you to be careful with it and to think for what purposes you'll use your gift. It makes much more greater difference than you might think," Reimu continued and poured some more tea for Marisa and herself.

"For what I could it use then?" Marisa asked while stirring her tea with empty look on her eyes.

"Well the obvious answer would be youkai hunting. You know, resolving incidents and keeping humans safe," Reimu said and shrugged her shoulders.

"Other than that the only option would be an entertainer at human village, but I assume that no self respecting magician would do that," Reimu said and smiled a bit.

"Heh, true. But I don't know. How can I become a youkai hunter?" Marisa asked and finally managed to create an eye contact with Reimu.

"It's simple really. There are these individual youkai every now and then who have become a bit too confident when approaching human village. They don't necessarly posses any real threat yet but beating them up is advisable so that they wont get too cozy around the village. But incidents are the real deal. Sometimes a youkai or a group of them threaten the balance of Gensokyo or something of that caliber happens. It is youkai hunter's job to stop the culprit at once. I admit that it is dangerous and sometimes even life threatening but it pays well, improves your battle skills and most importantly gets your blood flowing like nothing else," Reimu said with a gentle and self confident smile on her face.

"I see," Marisa responded with a bit more curious look on her face.

"But may I ask you something?" Marisa continued and stared Reimu to her eyes.

"Sure, whatever is on your mind," Reimu responded and took a sip from her tea.

"Thanks. It's been bugging me that you're awfully young to be fighting youkai. I mean it is gonna be half a decade before you would be an adult. Why's that?" Marisa asked with curious look on her face.

"I could say the same about you. You too are awfully young to use magic on that level but since you were taught by a youkai it is easier to overlook. For me the reason is that the shrine maiden's job usually ends in early death. My mother died when I was only five," Reimu responded and shrugged her shoulders.

"Youkai?" Marisa asked carefully.

"Yep. It is bound to happen to me too if I'm not careful," Reimu responded calmly and took another sip from her tea.

"B-but if your mother died so early who taught you to become shrine maiden?" Marisa asked with curious tone and look on her face.

"Well obviously I wasn't ready to be shrine maiden when my mother died so I had to be taught but unfortunately I cannot tell who it was. We, the members of Hakurei bloodline, have a matron who aids and teaches us when needed. She appears before us only rarely and never to outsiders. Her identity is a secret that I cannot tell to you," Reimu responded with serious look on her face.

"Okay. I'll respect that secret and I'll try not to find out anything about it. But still thanks for listening to my woes, I truly appreciate. I'll be heading home now," Marisa said, stood up and pressed her hat to her head.

"No problem. Just do me one favor and think about what I said. Especially becoming a youkai hunter," Reimu said and smiled gently.

"I promise I will," Marisa said and grinned slightly before stepping out and was just about to take off when she heard Reimu yelling after her, "Strange and romantic is fate, no?"

"Yep, it truly is," Marisa responded with a slight smile on her face before she took off towards the Forest of Magic in the distance.

Marisa did like Reimu had told her to. She thought about becoming a youkai hunter and since she didn't have any kind of way to earn money or to train herself in magic there wasn't really any other option for her to take than to become a youkai hunter. She started honing her skills first with those basic nuisance youkai who were bothering the outskirts of the human village. She soon realized that it was kinda simple job and beneficial too. She got pretty much experience in a short time and could also pay for the food to keep herself fed with the payments she got from her extermination jobs. But one thing she wanted to keep unchanged was her close realtion to youkai because with the spare money she got she could start trading with the youkai in and near the forest of magic. It wasn't long till she had a quite collection of magical books and other items that even further improved her magical skills. She was also always stripping her extermination victims from their valuable items to punish them and to see if they had anything beneficial for her.

Her new lifestyle was keeping her busy as she kept improving herself more and more. Soon she realized that her flying was keeping her from improving faster because when she fought youkai in the air she had to use her own magic resources for flying and attack which kept her from using her full potential. To overcome this problem she crafted a broom from bamboo and birch sticks. The crafting of that broom wasn't too difficult task but she had to also imbue it with her magic which she had never done. She had never before created a magical object herself so when she finally managed to enchant the broom so that it could fly and respond to her commands while flying it was a great achivement for her.

She was also constantly becoming more and more better friends with Reimu. Sometimes they even met while chasing the same youkai by accident. To choose who would be the one to get to exterminate it they would have a friendly duel and the winner would get to exterminate the youkai. Reimu was the one who usually won but Marisa could every now and then best her in a duel which further strengthened her confidence. When she wasn't doing some research on immortality or magic itself or chasing youkai she would spend time at the shrine with Reimu for she had become her best friend in under a year and that if anything was new to her.

But even after all this she still hadn't tried to resolve or gotten chance to resolve an incident. Reimu had said that those things were rare but Marisa hadn't though that they would be this rare. It had been over nine months since Marisa had become youkai hunter and no incident had happened. This however changed when the spring was starting to change into summer. A huge ruined 'thing' had appeared next to the hill on top of which the Hakurei shrine was. It didn't take long until some mysterious pamphlets started to scatter all around Gensokyo getting attention of most youkai and humans. Those included Marisa, Mima and Reimu. The pamphlets told of a gift that would be given to the one who would enter those ruins but also said that only one could enter. Marisa was convinced that she would need to be the one to enter that ruin to prove herself right here and now. She was aware that she had tough opponents like Reimu and her former Master towards whom she still had great respect but after all those recent youkai exterminations she had done she was convinced that she could pull it off.

And so the contest began. Seven of the most eager youkai and humans clashed in one colossal one for all battle to see who would get the privilege to enter those ruins and claim that supposed price. At first the battles were kinda light hearted but when each of the participants realized the level of their opponents the fights started to get rough. Marisa managed herself in the battles quite well. Her new broom and skills in combat made it sure that she was one of the most likely candidates for entering the ruin. She had beaten all her other opponents except Reimu and Mima and now it was time for her to face her former master. As soon as there was a chance they clashed in a magic duel. Mima didn't utter even a single word before, during of even after their duel. She had cut all her connections to Marisa after she had left her. And Marisa, even if she still greatly respected Mima, did the same for she had no intentions to lose. She was also driven by the great urge to show to her former mentor that she was capable handling herself with or without her teachings. She also had something new too to show to Mima. Her new spell which didn't summon her orbs but instead two wings of pure energy which she could use to fly and to fire bullets. She was really determined to show Mima right here and now that she and her own power were greater than Mima had in that she succeeded. In the end Marisa emerged victorious from her and Mima's encounter and now only one who was left was Reimu. Marisa challenged her friend without hesitation. After beating Mima she was full of confidence and was sure that she had all the chances to beat her friend now. It was the hardest battle so far. She knew what Reimu was capable of but didn't let it distract her and just focused onto the battle. In surprise to everyone Marisa emerged as victorious in the end and ultimately was the one who got to enter the strange ruin.

Insides of the ruin were completely alien for her. There were machines devices likes of which she had seen never outside of Kappa valley. She kept wandering deeper into the ruins in hopes of finding the whoever had promised the gift and in the end she found them. She encountered two humans. She had expected to encounter some spirit or a god instead of a human so she was pretty surprised. After a brief discussion with the two she realized they were planning to take the whoever entered those ruins back with them to the outside world where they had supposedly come from. At first Marisa was intrigued by this opportunity, but when she learned that she had been deceived and there was no actual gift for her she decided that she wouldn't leave which resulted in a battle between her and the other human who was the student of the captain of that ruined ship. The battle was easy. The student didn't really have any experience in combat so Marisa won her pretty fast but it was after that when Marisa faced the culprit of that incident. The master of that ship wasn't going to let Marisa leave and attacked her to forcefully take her back to the outside world. Marisa and the captain of that ship clashed in a duel and Marisa was quite surprised by her skills. She had thought that the humans of the outside world had no skills in magical combat but it appears that she was mistaken. The captain of that ship, Yumemi Okazaki, gave Marisa a really hard time but ultimately Marisa managed to topple even her in combat. She felt exited. She had never before resolved a true incident so this was great experience for her. However now when she had won she wasn't willing to leave the ruined ship. Not before she would get what she had come for, the price. Marisa demanded that gift that was promised in the pamphlet. Yumemi and her student revealed that there was no gift which enraged Marisa. Yumemi then promised to give Marisa something from the outside world. Marisa thought about what she would want and in the end decided that she would want to get her hands onto an outside world weapon. At first Yumemi didn't know what to give Marisa since she didn't carry any real outside world weapons with her but then she ended up giving Marisa one of the intercontinental ballistic defence missiles of that ship. The missile was larger than Marisa in size but eventually she managed to get her price outside from the ruined ship. And as soon as she did the ruined ship was already gone like it had never even been there. At first Marisa was shocked by the disappearance of that ship, but remembering how suddenly it had appeared in the first place it didn't seem very out of place in the end.

The first few weeks after resolving that incident Marisa was full of herself and boasting about it to Reimu constantly. But in the end her confidence returned back to normal when she couldn't figure out a way to operate the missile she had gotten. She had ended up painting a mouth and eyes for it to make it look more lively even if it was just a hunk of metal for her. She though that it was kinda cute now when it had a face. But what was now most important to her was the fact that she was finally fully proved herself and was recognized as a full fledged youkai hunter between the humans and youkai as well. Reimu's advice had changed her whole life and for that Marisa was ever grateful. If happiness had brought immortality she would have been immortal already.

The days, weeks and months started to pass by as Marisa got more and more used to her current life along side with Reimu and other humans. The village started to warm up to her precence when they learned that she was as valuable to them as a youkai hunter as Reimu. After one year had passed again a new incident occurred. Ghosts and other youkai started swarming the shrine grounds and this time both Marisa and Reimu decided to investigate the situation. Their investigations lead them to a ominous lake on the mountains behind the shrine. There they faced a vampire that revealed that she was a gatekeeper of some other, stronger youkai. Reimu and Marisa continued past the Lake of Blood after defeating the vampire and found themselves in the fantasy world from where they found Mugenkan and a mansion from within. The master of that mansion was fast asleep when they arrived but even while sleeping the sleeping youkai culprit gave off a fearsome aura, something like neither of them had ever felt before. The mastermind of that mansion introduced herself as Yuuka Kazami. Despite her casual looks and all both Marisa and Reimu felt that the foe in front of them was something like never before. They challeneged her into a duel which Yuuka happily accepted. As soon as the battle started Yuuka split herself in two creating a clone from herself. It was two on two fight which made it sure that Marisa and Reimu couldn't get upper hand on her. They split up and both took on their clone. But what surprised them the most was that both of the Yuukas they were fighting were completely independent. If the other attacked the other might have just done something else. This kept both Marisa and Reimu on their toes because the enemy they were facing was so inpredictable. But the fact that Yuuka seemed to have two bodies wasn't their only problem. The biggest obstacle on their way was the fact that Yuuka possessed power like they had never seen before. The sheer magical energy Marisa felt from one bullet as it missed just barely her head was enough to make her heart skip a beat. The opponent in front of them was something that made Marisa realize why Reimu had described her job as life threatening.

The battle was exhausting and it didn't help that they even lost Yuuka in the midst of it. They had to find her again and when they found her she was already ready for more and this time presented Marisa and Reimu with something new. A spell likes of which neither of them had ever seen. A huge beam of pure energy burning away all it touched. As lethal and fearsome as it seemed this spell almost entranced Marisa when she first saw. The pure power and beauty of that beam caught her attention for so long that Reimu had to pull her out of the way of that spell when it almost hit her. Once Marisa had gotten back to her senses they could get back into fighting. Yuuka showered them with these 'Master Sparks' as she called them destroying most of the mansion in the progress. After most of the mansion was redused to rubble along with the most of the surrounding was the battle over with Marisa and Reimu just barely victorious. This incident had been much more dangerous than the last one in which Marisa had been involved. Yuuka admitted defeat and promised to rid the shrine from youkai. They then returned to their own world to lick their wounds as victors of that battle, which was kinda embarrasing. To return home all bruised and beaten even if you had just resolved an incident was something Marisa hoped that she wouldn't need to get used to. However she currently had much more pressing matters than her own battle scars. Immediately when she reached her home she started looking for pen and paper. She had to write the notes about Yuuka's Master Spark when they were still fresh on her mind. That kind of a spell must not be overlooked. She had to make sure to learn it. She had basically fallen in love with that spell. She wrote down everything she had seen, heard and felt when Yuuka had fired her Master Spark at her and Reimu.

"That youkai had much more power to spend on that spell than I do, but with a just tiny bit of spell distillation and by toning it down a little, I might be able to reacreate it," Marisa muttered to herself while writing down her notes. Once she was done with the notes she started breaking down everything she had learned from correct way of firing it, concentration needed for it and the spiritual status. She drew down few pentagonal diagrams to make some calculations and wrote down everything she got out from those notes. She kept doing this over and over again always writing new notes based on her most recent ones. It took her well over a week but in the end she managed to compress everything she needed into a one sheet of paper containing only one heptagonal diagram and the compressed notes of that spell that were stripped from every last bit of useless information. All and all Marisa was happy with the result. On paper she should be able to cast it but she couldn't be sure before she would actually try to cast it. She took the sheet of paper together with her before stepping outside. She layed the paper to the handrail of her terrace, looked at it for one more time and then went to stand in the middle of her yard. She didn't want to shoot it accidentally at her house so she aimed it to the opposite direction to the sky so it wouldn't cause any harm. She then took a deep breath, closed her eyes and pointed her hands to the direction in which she wanted to fire her spell. She waited for a moment. She was excited and nervous at the same time. She could hear her heart beating when she opened her mouth.

"Master...," Marisa started and a dim light started glowing between her palms creating that heptagonal image she had drawn to that paper. She took another deep breath and continued with her spell, "PAAAARK!" The heptagon in front of Marisa's hands ignited firing a first only a narrow beam, but only second later it bursted into a massive roaring beam, similiar to the one which Yuuka had fired. However something was majorly wrong when Marisa opened her eyes to witness her spell visually. When she opened her eyes the only thing she saw how a black beam had ignited from her palms letting off a ominous purple glow. It absorbed every last bit of light from her surroundings shrouding her in darkness. Marisa started to sweat. This wasn't supposed to happen. She tried to cancel her spell but she was unable. It was at that moment when she was truly starting to get scared. It seemed that the spell was only getting stronger and stronger locking Marisa's body in place making it impossible to cancel it by moving ones hands away. She started to breath heavily as she tried to stop her spell but without success. After few seconds Marisa started to lose her visual to her hands and feet as the darkness around her got stronger and stronger. The roaring of the beam she had fired had gotten louder and louder but suddenly she started hearing whispers over that roaring. She couldn't understand what the whispers said because they were too distorted to be understandable but once she saw how the darkness completely shrouded her arms down from her elbows she let out a terrified scream and finally managed to force herself to jump backwards cancelling the spell and making her fall the ground. She just sat there on her yard for good ten minutes just breathing heavily with empty look on her eyes before she managed to stand up. She then walked up to her terrace, took the sheet of paper and just looked at it.

"W-what the hell was that? That wasn't supposed to happen...," Marisa stuttered while looking at the sheet of paper in her hands. She had thought that she had thougth of every single way the spell could fail but what had just happened was beyond her comprehension. She slowly walked back inside her house and closed the door behind herself. She sat down in front of her table where her terrarium still was. She looked at it for a moment. Her spider had covered the place quite well with spider silk. She then looked at her hands. She was shaking all over. When she had fired her beam it had obscured all the light on her surroundings and once it had gotten so powerful to obscure her hands as well she had managed to pull herself free. She then took the paper where she had made her notes, looked at it for a moment and then took a pen. She crossed out the word 'master' from the paper and wrote 'dark' to it's place. She then folded the paper, took it to her room and put it into her lockable drawer.

"Better to keep it safe. Weapon of such caliber must not be taken lightly," Marisa said with a bit shivering tone as she locked her drawer again. She had put many other dangerous spells into that drawer over the course of the years but never before had she managed to create something like that. As she returned to her living room she thought that it was maybe best to not tell Reimu about this. That spell had had so horrifying aura to it that it could have gotten her into more trouble if Reimu were to know about it.

"I have to recreate that spell if I want to use it safely," Marisa thought to herself half aloud but she wasn't ready to start her research again right away. She needed something to distract herself for a moment. She then decided to visit the village. It had been quite long time since she had visited the village just to spend some time and not to do some shopping or to collect the payment of a youkai hunting mission. She grabbed her broom right away and left for the village. For some reason she just wanted to think something else than the spell she had just created. Something told her that she should keep her distance to it.

It didn't take long till she reached the gates to the human village. She barged right in from the gates while waving hello for few guards who were standing next to the gate. She headed straight for the market. She wasn't planning on shopping but instead eavsdropping on people. Market was the place where it was easiest to hear something interesting by accident. She walked towards the market through narrow allies when she suddenly heard fast foot steps coming her way. She had no time to turn her head and look what it was when she felt herself being tackled to ground.

"Ow! Oi, look where you're running," Marisa bridled as she took her hat from the ground and shook it clean from dust.

"I-I'm terribly sorry miss. I was running home from school," A small girl who had knocked her over responded quickly and bowed. Marisa just sighed, put her hat back on top of her head and looked at the girl. It was then when she realized who the girl was. She was wearing a black vest with white dress shirt under it. She also had a black skirt and red tie around her neck. There was nothing strange about that but it was her face that caught Marisa's attention. Her eyes were deep red and her pupils were these cat-like black streaks. Her hair was blonde and semi long. Her mouth was full of sharp teeth that looked more like ones of a predator than a human and the nails on her hands were sharp and seemed to be made of bone.

"S-so you're that girl from two years ago... How are you so old looking already? I could swear that if I didn't know better I'd say you're already ten years old," Marisa said with careful tone and look on her face. The girl in front of her was clearly the youkai child that the whole village had talked about. If she remembered correctly her name was Rumia.

"I-I'm sorry miss but I don't know you...," Rumia responded with shy look on her face while looking at the ground.

"Well I don't know you either, well at least not too well but I saw you when you were just a baby," Marisa said and grinned a little.

"Well my mother says that I'm special. That the kids of my age should just start learning to talk," Rumia responded with nervous look while twiddling her fingers.

"Gotta admit that you're special. I can clearly see that. By the way why were you running to home? Are you busy?" Marisa asked with now curious look on her face.

"No, I just don't like being out when it's sunny and if I don't hurry the other students will come after me and bully me. I'm sorry but I have to go now," Rumia said and started running again. Marisa looked after her and saw how a strange mass of darkness gathered above Rumia's head while she was running away.

"I wonder if she even knows that she's a youkai...," Marisa thought to herself as she continued her walk towards the market.

"It must be hard for her. No wonder why the other students would bully her. I too would be afraid of her if I were just a kid and a youkai would come to the same school as me. And the fact that she's using her powers so openly. That's not gonna help her at all," Marisa kept wondering while she walked past few kids.

"Did that freak run home already? I hoped that we had caught her," One of the kids said out loud while Marisa walked past them.

"I wonder if she even understands how different she is from the other kids. To be able to go to school in just age of two. At the same time I feel pity for her but I'm also intrigued. Never have I ever seen how a youkai child developes into adulthood," Marisa thought while looking behind herself at the kids who she assumed to be the bullies Rumia mentioned.

Other than her encounter with Rumia Marisa's visit in the village was pretty much uneventful but it was still enough to distract her thoughts away from the failure of her Master Spark. After that it didn't take many weeks for her to completely forget about that spell and carry on with her life normally. Marisa knew that Rumia wasn't something that human village was used to but she didn't want to bother Reimu with the matter so she decided to keep her eye on her for now. Every week Marisa visited the human village about three time and always secretly spied on Rumia. She even sometimes asked from the villagers themselves if they had possibly seen anything out of ordinary regarding Rumia like Rumia wasn't out of ordinary herself. But for Marisa's surprise it really seemed that Rumia had adopted the customs and manners of the human village. Only thing Marisa saw Rumia doing every day that wasn't human like was forming that absurd mass of darkness above her head every time she went outside during a sunny day.

Other than her spell failure that she soon forgot about and Rumia Marisa's life continued normally. She worked on her research lazily when she wasn't visiting Reimu at her shrine. Reimu had started jokingly talking about getting successor for the shrine soon. Marisa and Reimu usually just laughed at the idea but Marisa knew and sometimes even saw from Reimu's eyes that she knew too that she needed to get a kid sooner or later to ensure that there would be the next shrine maiden. Marisa didn't really much mind the idea. In fact she thought that it would be interesting to see how Reimu would manage with a child but she admitted to herself that it would mean that Reimu couldn't spend as much time with her or exterminating youkai. The thought of things changing was uncomfortable even if Marisa was eager to see how it would go. She had spent so much time with Reimu that she didn't know if she wanted to things to ever change. But usually she just supressed those thoughts from her mind by ensuring to herself that it was still gonna take years till any real changes to her life would happen.

A year passed once again with Marisa continuing with her laid back attitude towards her research and youkai hunting. During that time Yuuka had moved to Gensokyo from the Fantasy World which at first didn't seem to appeal to Reimu nor Marisa but as soon as they realized that Yuuka didn't really like to cause a ruckus that often, excluding those few times when a stray youkai accidentally stepped onto her flowers in the Garden of the Sun where she had moved, everyone got used to Yuuka's presence. In fact they had to because everyone soon noticed that there was no youkai in Gensokyo powerful enough to openly defy her. Sometimes she was even seen just casually standing next to the walls of the human village. But when Reimu was sent to drive her away she had just laughed and told that she was just wanted to see people's reactions when they saw her. She then left without protesting leaving Reimu just staring how she flew away with baffled look on her face. In the other words things were really peaceful. That was until a group of strange youkai suddenly appeared to Gensokyo. At first their presence caused no problem but soon it became clear that those youkai weren't native to Gensokyo because they started to attack the native humans and even youkai of Gensokyo. This soon drew Marisa's and Reimu's attention.

After catching and interrogating one of the youkia it revealed that it was no youkai at all and instead a demon from Makai. From this Reimu and Marisa deduced that the what ever was causing those demons to appear was in Makai. The resolving of that incident became Marisa's main agenda immediately when she heard the word Makai. It had been quite while since she had visited Makai last time so now when she was about to see even more of that mysterious land she was excited. Reimu showed Marisa how to get to Makai. She told her that this was the method she originally used to go after her and Mima. She created a portal using her yin yang orbs which took them into a place which Reimu called 'the Border Space'. In the other words it was the very edge of the World of Fantasies. Marisa was curious for why she couldn't create a portal directly to Makai but Reimu responded to that because it was magic and she didn't need to explain.

They started to follow a trail of demons that appeared in the World of Fantasies and it didn't take too long for them to find another portal, or should we say a hole in reality. It really wasn't a portal because they could really easily see what was on the other side of it and how every now and then a demon popped from there. Marisa and Reimu didn't hesitate and charged through the gaping hole and into the Makai. From there it was pretty easy to just follow ever so long trail of demons that got on their way and by the looks of it were headed for the hole. But while Reimu was already getting annoyed by the sheer amount of foes they had to face Marisa didn't show any signs of boredom. She was constantly looking around herself in this new land. The landscape was covered in black obsidian and was mostly plain excluding the mountains that could be seen in the distance and a ravine or two that had cracked into obsidian. It was pretty much the same as the last time she had been there but this times she could see more of that land. She also remembered the sun. That ominous orange ball that just hung slightly above the horizon like always. She was so entranced by the beautiful sight before them that she didn't even realize how the landscape below them had started to change. When she finally looked down she saw fields of grass, rivers and even forests growing out from solid obsidian. Rivers that flowed into those ravines formed beautiful waterfalls. Their sightseeing however was cut short when they were stopped by a strange youkai. Reimu saw immediately that it wasn't natural being of Makai. Her spirit was just too 'pure' according to her. The youkai introduced herself as Alice Margatroid. She was wearing a white dress with blue apron and a matching headband with ribbon on its side. She had a blonde semi long hair and was accompanied by two small figures. They were dolls by the looks of their joints. Alice greeted Reimu and Marisa like any other demon they had encountered so far but she alone also proved superior to any other demon they had encountered so far.

While battling her Marisa noticed one odd thing. Alice kept her eyes on Marisa for the whole battle. She attacked Reimu as fiercely as Marisa but she saw how Alice was keeping her eye on Marisa's every move. She didn't let it distract her though and it didn't take too long for them to finally beat her. But the way how Alice had stared at Marisa and how Reimu had said that she couldn't be from Makai because her spirit was too 'pure' made Marisa wonder what Alice actually was because she had never seen any youkai using such magic. She had never seen anybody controlling dolls with magic. However she had to put that behind herself pretty quickly when they left that vegetated area and entered a city that they had seen from far away. In the middle of that city there was this massive fortress made from glossy, polished obsidian-like stone. It didn't take them long to deduce that it was the most likely place to find the culprit for those demons coming to Gensokyo. And without any surprise they were correct. From inside that fortress they found a maid and her master who were pretty clearly behind all of the commotion. The master ran away at first but after Marisa and Reimu battled their way through the surprisingly tough maid they could head after the master of that fortress.

When Marisa and Reimu finally caught up with the main culprit she revealed herself as the god of Makai, Shinki. She called the fortress in which they currently were the 'Pandemonium'. A fitting name for a fortress in Makai on Marisa's opinion. However her opinions didn't matter too much because Reimu was already ready to strangle the so called god of Makai and after a short conversation Reimu had had enough and she charged at the god. Marisa quickly joined her to help her to win the battle and resolve that tiring incident for once and for all.

Shinki indeed lived up to her title as a god at least with her proves in combat. Shinki's moves were something likes of which Marisa had never seen before. Instead of relying on sheer power and overwhelming numbers of bullets, Shinki relied onto complex and beautiful patterns which proved to be really challenging to get past not to mention the fact that Shinki truly was able to take the beating from Marisa and Reimu together. But in the end like every other foe before them Shinki too was felled to the battlefield. Marisa wasn't convinced though. She suspected that Shinki lost intentonally but intentional defeat or not Reimu was happy now when Shinki admitted defeat and promised to stop the demons from entering Gensokyo. But just before Marisa and Reimu left Shinki told to Marisa that the only reason she had caused the incident was to get Reimu and her to come to her because she was bored which proved Marisa's suspicions correct. However it didn't matter for Reimu since she didn't hear Shinki saying that because she was already too far away to hear Shinki saying anything.

After Shinki had said her smug good byes for Marisa she flew after Reimu who was already hoping to return home as soon as possible to get some sleep. Jumping between dimensions was tiring Marisa figured and laughed a bit but she couldn't laugh the matter off that easily because while they were returning to Gensokyo she noticed a certain someone following them. That weird Alice girl was following them. At first Marisa thought that they would shake her off when they would go through Reimu's portal back to Gensokyo but no. Alice followed them through the portal. It was after that when Marisa lost the visual on her. She was just about to tell Reimu about it but when she saw the ravenous look on Reimu's face when she headed for her shrine to get something to eat she decided not to bother her and look onto the matter by herself. She flew towards the Forest of Magic since it was one the largest forest in all of Gensokyo it was very likely that she could find that Alice girl from there if she was going to find her at all. Forest of Magic also attracted youkai quite lot so it felt natural to look for a youkai from there.

"Why did she follow us? Is she up to something?" Marisa thought to herself as she entered the forest. She saw couple of fairies here and there together with some feral youkai but not a trace from that Alice girl. She flew around the forest for about an half hour until she ended up on her own house. Since she hadn't found Alice yet she thought that she could as well grab something to eat before continuing but before she could step inside to her house she found a note nailed to her door. She grabbed the note and read it.

"You, interesting magician, meet me at the old abandoned house in the Forest of Magic southwest from your house. Regards: A," Marisa read out loud. It had to be written by that strange Alice girl, there was no other choice. But how she knew the name of the forest she was in if she was from Makai. But it was then when Marisa remembered how Reimu had said that she couldn't be from Makai because her spirit was too 'pure' or something. Marisa squeezed the note in her hand, grabbed her broom again and headed for that abandoned house she had seen from time to time but since it had never emitted any kind of magical aura or any sings of magic at all she hadn't bothered to investigate the house ever before.

As she flew towards the abandoned house the more and more it started to feel fishy how Alice had specifically mentioned that abandoned house. Was it a trap? Marisa couldn't be too sure. She just wanted to see what that Alice was up to. So when she finally landed onto the rank yard of that house she immediately hid into a thicket. It was quiet. Just like the last time she had seen the house. It looked like no one had lived in it for decades. She observed the situation for a moment but when she saw nothing out of ordinary she stood up from the thicket and started walking towards the dangling door of that house.

"No matter how I look at it this is certainly a trap," Marisa thought to herself as she stepped onto the rotten terrace. The planks creaked as she stepped onto them. She reached for the door and pulled it open. She was careful not to accidentally pull it off from its hinges for that would have definitely given away her presence if her presence hadn't been noticed already. She wiped that thought from her mind and stepped into the old building. It was as rotten from the inside as it was from the outside. Some moss and other plants were growing from the floor and all the remaining furniture was beyond unusable. She could smell mildew from the wet walls as she walked further into the building. Once she reached a room that she assumed to be living room she saw a barely standing table and few of those dolls Alice had used on top of it. Marisa's senses sharpened as she confirmed for herself that Alice was there.

"You find the place okay? It could use some reshuffle," Marisa heard Alice's voice saying behind her. She turned around and saw Alice examining the door frame.

"Pretty weird place to arrange a meeting, wouldn't you agree?" Marisa said with a bit nervous look on her face.

"Well isn't one's home the most usual place where guests are invited. Wouldn't want to intrude by coming uninvited to your house," Alice responded and shrugged her shoulders.

"Wait, what do you mean your house?" Marisa asked with confused look on her face.

"This building was my house before I moved to Makai. And if you're wondering how I knew where you lived, well I lived here already when you moved to the Forest of Magic. I always thought that you were a curious little human to move there," Alice said and leaned against the wall.

"So what do you want from me? You wouldn't invite me to 'your place' without a reason," Marisa said and tilted her head.

"Well as I said I found you pretty interesting. Especially how you were accompanied by that shrine maiden. I knew her mother, you know," Alice said and grinned a little.

"Could you slow down a little. How come you know so much about the history of Gensokyo and why does a youkai find me interesting?" Marisa asked again with a bit frustrated tone and look on her face.

"Now now, I'm not your average youkai. You see the reason why I find you interesting is that I used to be just like you, a human you see," Alice said and shrugged her shoulders.

"Wait, a human?" Marisa asked to confirm what she had heard.

"Indeed. I turned myself into youkai after I found out how superior they were and that it would remove all the limitations about researching magic if I were to be human," Alice continued and grinned again.

"And how does this relate to me?" Marisa with impatient look on her face.

"Last time I saw you you looked kinda different and that was almost twenty years ago. That old lady I remember seems to be younger than I remember?" Alice said with smug look on her face. She had seen through Marisa disquise immediately.

"You may have fooled that shrine maiden, but you cannot fool me. But it really doesn't concern me how you keep yourself alive. We magician have all our own ways of becoming a youkai," Alice said and went to pick up her dolls from that table.

"I'm sorry, what?" Marisa asked while looking at Alice.

"A youkai, that's how you'll end up. That's how we all end up. Human magicians have that thing in common," Alice said with much more serious look on her face and looked at Marisa with the corner of her eye.

"I wont end up like that. I have my own means to preserve my humanity," Marisa said with a bit offended loo on her face.

"Look, I was not trying to insult you in any way. You're talented, but naive. No matter how many times you change your body it wont make a difference. Your humanity isn't determined wether you're in a human body or not. It is the spirit that matters. A youkai in a human body is a youkai nonetheless. That's why Reimu knew that I didn't belong into Makai. I used to be human once and there are still traces of that left in me. But you're completely opposite. Even if you're a human I can feel a traces of youkai energy from you. Have you... perhaps tried a new spell recently and it didn't turn out like you had expected?" Alice asked with dead serious look on her face. Once Marisa heard her say that she gulped and took a step backwards.

"I see. Well to your relief I can say that the reason for the unexpected results isn't your unskillfulness but instead you yourself. Your mind is tainted and that spell, what ever it might have been, dag those thoughts or feelings out. I cannot say what it is but I'd suggest you to be careful," Alice warned Marisa while inspecting her doll.

"Why are you all of a sudden warning me about these things? Weren't you the one who tried to kill me back in Makai and didn't you just say that I would turn into youkai nevertheless?" Marisa asked with a bit nervous look on her face.

"When I said that I turned myself into youkai to pursue my magic research I told you the truth, but I didn't tell everything. I may have turned myself free willingly into youkai but not a day goes by when I wouldn't regret that decision," Alice said and turned towards Marisa.

"Why is that?" Marisa asked with confused look on her face.

"Well let's just say that being a youkai is not the same as being a human. If you ever get to that point where you would turn into youkai, you'll know what I mean," Alice said and put her doll down.

"But I have depressed you enough, now have I? I didn't invite you here to scare you. I just wanted to get to know my fellow magician," Alice said and her expression switched from serious to a smug grin.

Marisa ligthened up soon after they started having a casual conversation together while tidying up Alice's house as best as they could. It didn't long for Alice to realize that she had been away for so long that she would need to build a completely new house for herself. Marisa offered to help with that but after Alice showed her what she was capable of doing with her dolls she realized that she would be just on the way. They kept chatting for a while not bringing up that topic about becoming a youkai again. Marisa got to know Alice quite well during those few hours before she decided that it was time for her to leave. But before leaving she decided to welcome Alice back to Gensokyo. Marisa was sure that event like this didn't happen often and it was her honor to be the first one to meet Alice as she returned home. However, as nice as Alice seemed Marisa still recognized her as a youkai and didn't completely trust her at first. The way she had seen immediately that she had a new body and that something had gone wrong with her recent spell made Marisa feel really uneasy when thinking about her. She seemed to know awfully lot about the process of becoming a youkai and it wasn't too big of a surprise since she was one by herself. But the indepth details she gave to Marisa were nerving.

The thoughts about her new neighbour's presence didn't left Marisa's mind even weeks after the incident had been resolved. She had visited Alice few times during the last few weeks to see how the demolition of her old house was going and to her surprise Alice had torn the house down in almost two weeks just by herself. It was then when Marisa accepted that dolls that Alice was controlling were a bit more than just some ordinary tools to be used in combat. In fact Alice explained to Marisa that the only thing she didn't use her dolls was to create more dolls but Marisa didn't really understand why not.

It was currently third week after Alice's return to Gensokyo. Marisa was just returning from the shrine. She had informed Reimu pretty soon about Alice coming to Gensokyo with them after she had met her. Reimu had said that her presence wouldn't bother her as long as she didn't cause an incident which Marisa didn't find a too surprising of an answer. While flying back to the forest she thought that she might as well go and see how Alice was doing with the demolition. It had been couple of days since she had last visited her. So that's what she decided to do. It was pretty late evening. Sun had just set below horizon but Marisa thought that it wouldn't hurt to visit a friend even if it was kinda late. Indeed Marisa had started to concider Alice as her friend pretty soon after they met.

Marisa flew to Alice's house and landed to its yard. She looked around herself. The first time she had visited Alice's house the yard had looked really untended, but now it looked much better. The house itself was almost completely demolished already. Only few pillars and parts of the floor remained. Marisa walked a bit closer to see where Alice was but didn't find her anywhere. She then stepped inside the remains of that house and looked around herself. If Alice had been in there she would have seen her but since she didn't she assumed that she was running some errands or something. She decided to take a closer look at the progress Alice was making. She walked around the remains of that house but soon stopped when she saw a section where the floor had been ripped off and under that section there was seemingly hand dug hole. She took a closer look at it, but a once she got close enough a foul stench reached her nose. She backed away while holding her nose. She then took the ribbon from her hat and tied it around her face to keep the smell out so she could take better look. She did that and tried to peek in again. This time she managed to get close enough to see what was on the bottom of the whole.

Marisa was shocked. On the bottom of the hole there was bunch of human corpses. Eight if she counted correctly. By the looks of it the corpses had been there for a quite long time since every single one of them was completely rotten which explained the terrible smell.

"How long have they been there? A-Alice? Is this your doing?" Marisa thought to herself as she backed away from the hole. She had gotten a quite uneasy feeling about her when they had first met but she had thought that it was only her paranoia. Now it seemed that she should have listened to her gut feeling after all.

"I have to inform Reimu about this," Marisa thought and was just about to turn around and take off when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"I don't like the sight in front of you any more than you do," Alice said from behind Marisa. Marisa turned around and looked at Alice who had dead serious look on her face.

"You just had to stick your nose to other people's business," Alice said as she walked closer to Marisa and that hole.

"You have some explaining to do. I should have trusted my instincts. You're a youkai aft-," Marisa started with accusatory tone and look on her face but was soon interrupted, "Look who's talking. I'm not the only one in this space who has taken a human life during her life. These corpses used to be my 'friends'. I used their souls to abandon my humanity." Marisa just stared silently at Alice like waiting for her to continue.

"You know what separates youkai from human? The fact that human souls is countles times more powerful than a youkai soul. But that does not come without draw backs. Human soul is so powerful in itself that human body cannot handle any more energies. You might have mistaken what magic actually is. When you cast a spell, where do you think you get the energy to use it? You're using your own soul since there's no other energy source. That's what turns you into a youkai. Once you have drained your soul enough you'll reach a point when you cannot fuel yourself anymore resulting in you finding a new source of energy. That's what I did. I claimed the souls of these eight men to fuel myself. My own soul is just a fraction of what it used to be and so is yours already. A youkai soul is a soul that is not drained my magic and instead it has other source of power to fuel itself forcing the soul to be weaker but your powers greater. That's why youkai are weak against spiritual attacks but strong against physical," Alice said while staring down to the bottom of that hole.

"That does not make it any different. You're a killer and no science or lectures about youkai and magic will change that," Marisa said and pointed her finger at Alice with accusatory tone and look on her face.

"Does it now? These people came from the outside world... as did I. Originally we formed a group. They were thieves, criminals who took me in after they found me when I was just a newborn. Eight honest men they called themselves. But one thing they didn't know was that I had gifts. Powers that weren't natural for that world. It was when one of the men found a strange portal from a tree when we arrived to this world not knowing how to get back. And it was on that exact moment when my gifts amplified themselves. Back in the outside world I was able to just lift and budge some really small objects but when we came to Gensokyo I could take control over an entire human body. So it doesn't come as a surprise that I found out pretty quickly that becoming a youkai would grant me even more power and ways to use my gifts. So what I did was that I killed those men and consumed their souls becoming a youkai. After that I left to Makai to pursue even more powerful magics. That was also when I met the shrine maiden's, Reimu's mother," Alice finished her speech.

"How do you think that this'll get you out from this situation?" Marisa retorted with still really accusatory look on her face.

"Well let's pretend that you're right and Reimu is actually willing to come here and exterminate me after you tell her about how I became a youkai. Even if she going to exterminate me on sight it would still give me a pretty generous amount of time to reveal what you've been doing. I don't know if your victim or victims came from the outside world like mine did, but still a human killing a human is still a crime, especially if the killer is native to Gensokyo. Reimu doesn't want you to turn into youkai but once she would learn about your deeds and that you're already on the edge of becoming youkai she probably couldn't take it. It might mean end to me but also end to you if you cannot best your best friend in battle," Alice said with now a bit threatening tone while staring at Marisa. Marisa knew that Alice was right. If her past deeds would see the light of day it could really mean a dramatic end for her and Reimu's friendship. Marisa backed away a little and gulped.

"That's a dirty move," Marisa said with pissed look on her face.

"You might think that way but I'm thinking about your best here. I'm truly trying to help you from turning into youkai and I dare to say that I'm the only one who can help you with that. And to make sure that you wont snitch about this I have to threaten you for your own good. I'm only asking you to trust me on this. In the end I'm no more of a criminal than you are," Alice said with much more calm tone. Marisa just stood there but didn't utter even a single word.

"Good, it seems that we understand each other. Now you can head home or where ever you want and we can pretend we never had this discussion. I hope you understand why," Alice said, started controlling few of her dolls and got back to leveling her old house. Marisa didn't say anything. She just grabbed her broom and pressed her hat even deeper to her head. Then she just took off and headed home. Alice had convinced her to not to tell about this to Reimu but she had still really mixed feelings about Alice. First she had learned that she had killed almost dozen people and not only that but also threathened to expose Marisa if she were to expose her. It hardly seemed that Alice was trying to help her but she had no other choice than to roll with it. Any other option she had would lead to a certain disaster.

Marisa just had to hide everything and carry on like nothing had happened. It was hard for her to keep herself ever so cheerful with Reimu so that she wouldn't suspect a thing. In the end she started to get over it and it became easier and easier to forget each time she spent time with Reimu. But still after their little disqussion with Alice Marisa had started to reduce the amount of times she visited Alice because she couldn't help herself but to feel threathened every time she was present. She knew that there was nothing to worry about as long as she didn't run her mouth about their little incident.

All that complicated Marisa's life for a while but everything changed about year after the Makai incident. Something that caught Marisa completely off guard. She was going to visit the Hakurei shrine like it was any other casual day. It was little past midday and Marisa didn't have anything else to do. She flew up the stairs casually and once she reached the top she landed onto the torii like she usually did to see if Reimu was anywhere to be seen. And indeed she was but so was someone else too. Marisa saw Reimu accompanied by a some guy. Definitely a human and about the same age as they were.

"My, my, would you look at that," Marisa uttered out loud when she saw Reimu and that guy. It didn't take her even a second to realize what was going on. Reimu had gotten herself a boyfriend. Marisa decided that she wouldn't disturb them and that she would wait until the guy would leave. After that she could approach Reimu and ask her about her friend there.

Marisa hopped off from the torii and headed for the tree line where she was quite sure that they couldn't see her but she could see them. She couldn't hear them but clearly saw that they were discussing and not in a way that Reimu speaks to people she isn't too good freinds with. They sat up close each other, drank tea together and laughed from time to time. Especially laughing part confirmed that the guy Reimu spoke to was special. She never laughed with strangers without making it obvious that she was doing it sarcastically but this time she didn't show her usual 'leave me alone, you're not wanted here' expression.

Marisa sat there in the thicket observing the situation until the guy eventually stood up and it seemed that they were saying farewells. But once the guy gave a kiss to Reimu's cheek, that's when Marisa was about to lose it. She was just barely able to keep herself from bursting out laughing.

"You go girl," Marisa thought to herself as she watched how Reimu waved a good buy for her boyfriend as he left. Marisa looked after him for a moment before stepping out from the thicket and walking up to Reimu who was cleaning the teapot and cups away.

"Look at you. Getting all lovey dovey. It's not something you do often," Marisa said with mischevious grin on her face once Reimu noticed her presence.

"I-I assume that you were spying on us?" Reimu asked after a brief quail when she noticed Marisa's presence. She blushed immediately and scratched her hair as if trying to ease her stress.

"My, my, why didn't you tell me earlier? Hiding something this important is rude you know," Marisa said while crossing her arms over her chest while maintaining that smug grin on her face.

"You never asked. Besides we haven't spent enough time together yet to call it official," Reimu responded and looked really troubled about the subject.

"Looked pretty official to me. How long have you been together exactly?" Marisa asked with much more curious tone and look on her face.

"A little over two months by now. We've met only at the village. This was the first time he visited me at the shrine," Reimu responded and looked away while blushing a little more.

"Two months? Some people are already engaged after that. You're taking it slowly, eh?" Marisa said with suggestive grin on her face as she tucked Reimu to her shoulder.

"Well at least it is relief to hear that you're not angry or jealous with me," Reimu responded and finally managed to crack a smile.

"Angry? Why in the world would I be angry? Isn't it a friend's job to support her own friends in these situations?" Marisa asked with a confused smile on her face.

"Well when you put it that way... It is just that, you do understand that I have a lot less time for you now?" Reimu asked carefully while looking into Marisa's eyes while sitting down to the terrace.

"Well isn't that to be expected? Don't worry about it, I always have my research I can focus onto kill some time when you're not around," Marisa said and sat beside her freind.

"Thanks. It is good to hear that you understand," Reimu said and smiled.

"Ah, no biggie. But mind if I ask something?" Marisa asked with a bit more serious look on her face.

"Sure. What ever is on your mind," Reimu responded and tilted her head.

"Thanks. I want to know, are you doing this because you have to get a kid to be your successor or are you truly in love?" Marisa asked. Reimu saw immediately that she was being serious.

"Well, both if I'm honest. I have to get a child but I also truly love him. So I guessed that it was now or never," Reimu said and stared into Marisa's eyes before both bursted out laughing. After Reimu had finally caught her breath again she truned towards Marisa again and asked, "How about you? Do you have someone certain on you radar currently?"

"Me? Nah, I'll probably never even try to find someone suitable for me. I'm just not intrested in having a guy under my roof to slow down my research. Plus, I'm not the biggest fan of the thought of having kids," Marisa responded and shrugged her shoulders.

"Fair enough. But if not a guy, then how about a girl?" Reimu asked and tucked Marisa to her shoulder with suggestive grin on her face. She was clearly doing this as a payback.

"Hah! She would have to be more attractive than I am. And no one is more attractive than I," Marisa said with flamboyant tone and look on her face.

"Then clone yourself," Reimu said before bursting out laughing again. After they had calmed down and chatted for a bit Marisa brought up an idea.

"Say, now that you have a boyfriend and you need to spend more time with him, wouldn't this be a perfect moment for me to do some adventuring?" Marisa asked with a certain spark in her eye.

"What do you mean 'adventuring'?" Reimu asked with confused tone and tilted her head.

"Makai, that's what I mean. I've now visited it twice in my life and I've gotten more and more curious about that place. While you're having some quality time with your guy, I could go out and advance my research," Marisa said and winked at Reimu.

"I'm sure I don't need to warn you about how dangerous Makai is but then again I don't need to remind myself that once you get an idea there's no way of talking you out of it," Reimu said and sighed with a slight smile on her face.

"So is that a yes?" Marisa asked with impatient tone and look on her face.

"Do as you wish. Just promise me that you'll come back in one piece," Reimu said and patted Marisa to her shoulder.

"Hah, it is me who we're talking about. There's no threat big enough to topple me... except you," Marisa said and grinned.

"True that. How long you were planning to explore Makai?" Reimu then asked.

"Hmm, well taking into account that you and your boyfriend need lots of time for yourselves I was thinking about a year. Maybe even year and a half? Depends on how interesting I find that place," Marisa said and shrugged her shoulders.

"You're a true friend. Just promise me that I wont lose my freind during those months," Reimu said and stared into Marisa's eyes.

"Don't worry I promise," Marisa said with much more serious look on her face and nodded.

It didn't took more than two days for Marisa to make her preparations for her journey to the Makai. Reimu had promised to teach her how to open a portal directly to Makai. Marisa was pissed at Reimu when she heard that she truly could create a direct portal to Makai. She tried to get her to explain why she hadn't used it during the Makai demon incident but Reimu defended herself by saying that they needed to trace back the trail of demons precisely step by step. That's why according to Reimu they couldn't jump straight to Makai. But all that was in the past now and Marisa was ready to start her expedition to Makai. Before leaving she told Reimu to spend some quality time with her boyfriend and to make sure that the youkai didn't get too comfortable around her house while she was gone. Reimu promised to do what marisa had told before wishing her safe journey as Marisa vanished into a portal she had created.

Marisa's expedition started with visiting the city of Makai again and while doing so decided to visit Shinki again. Meeting her was as hard as last time for she had to get past that maid again but after finally getting past her she could have word with Shinki. She wanted to know every possible location in Makai worth exploring. When she finally left Pandemonium she had a temporary home there and a list of locations she wanted to visit. Shinki had given her a place at Pandemonium to where she could return to rest. And the list of locations she had gotten from Shinki consisted Ruins of Vina, World of Ice and Snow, the Wonderland, Hokkai and Remaiden. Marisa decided to start with Remaiden since she was already familiar with that place and it was the one that was the furthest away from the city of Makai so it felt natural to explore the hardest part of Makai first. She remembered well the big blue tower of Remaiden but since she hadn't seen anything else of what that place had to offer it was also really interesting location for her to explore.

Once she reached the Remaiden she set up her camp to the bottom of that blue tower she was familiar with. It was so big that it was hard to actually get lost in that place even if you tried. The tower was visible from all directions. Remaiden was the very edge of Makai so Marisa could immediately sense powerful forces at work there. It was almost like the barrier separating the outside world and Gensokyo but instead of mountians like there was in Gensokyo all Marisa could see when looking at what was supposed to be the edge of Makai was just endless completely flat plains of pure obsidian. The landscape beyond there had even fewer cracks than in the central Makai and lacked completely any hills and mountains. Marisa actually flew towards the edge of Makai until she rached the point when she coud just barely see the tower of Remaiden. She decided to turn back there so she would get lost since it didn't seem that the endless plains of obsidian would end when she looked around herself on that flat plain of obsidian.

She spent almost two months in Remaiden trying to learn more about how Makai actually was formed. After she was certain that she had learned everything that there was to be learned she packed her things and headed towards Hokkai. Even if she had been offered a place to stay in while in Makai she was sure that she didn't have time to spend in the Pandemonium. She had the required camping stuff with her to give her shelter when needed so she didn't bother to travel to the City of Makai every now and then.

Hokkai was her next stop. She didn't know what to expect, but once she got there she discovered that it was a massive mountain pass. It seemed like it had been carved to the mountains by some unknown force because it didn't look natural for her. She flew around the pass examining and could clearly feel strong magical energies at work there. It felt like a strong magical barrier but she couldn't be certain since there was no way to confirm the presence of any barrier visually. Only thing that confirmed that there was something were the strong magical forces that she felt and an occasional tremor or two that she felt while staying there. It became quite obvious to her that the Hokkai had to be volcanically the most active place in the Makai since she could usually see a crack opening to the side of the mountain followed by a spurt of lava each time she felt those tremors. Other than that she couldn't really find out anything really interesting about Hokkai. She couldn't tell if it was caused by those forces she believed to be barrier or just that there was nothing because she could swear that she felt a strong presence every now and then when exploring Hokkai.

She had spent about month in Hokkai when she finally packed up and left for the World of Ice and Snow. She and Reimu had flewn past it last time when they visited Makai so she knew pretty well where she needed to head. The World of Ice and Snow was also near the Wonderland which made Marisa's job easier. She could investigate them both without having the need to move her camp site. She finally found a good spot from between the two locations where she could set up a resting place. After she was done with her camp she headed for the World of Ice and Snow. It was just like the name had suggested, a world covered in ice and snow. Mountains, planes and everything else were covered in snow and ice as far as the eye could see. While wandering around the place Marisa noticed how the place was much more quieter than any other she had visited so far. Only times she saw an another living thing besides her was when she saw an occasional demon or two flying over her but never did she saw a being that would look like it would live in that place. It was also completely calm always. Not even a single gust of wind could be felt during whole of her stay at the place. But she couldn't say that she didn't enjoy walking around in snow in complete silence. It calmed her nerves and gave her time to think about stuff. Other than that the world didn't offer her anything else. She couldn't come up with a reason for why it was frozen solid or why it even existed in the first place.

From there she continued to the Wonderland she and Reimu had flown over when resolving the incident. She remembered that it was also the place where they had met Alice. The Wonderland was just like she had remembered and totally unlike any other place in Makai. It was covered in vegetation, trees and rivers. The plant life she found from there was nothing like she had ever seen so she spent most of her time collecting new herbs and plants. There were also more demons and other beings than in any other place she had visited. It gave her a good chance to improve her combat skills a little every time she wasn't collecting herbs. After she had collected a sample of every plant she could find she started to look into what made the place flourish. She flew around the Wonderland trying to find a possible reason for why the plants had the power to push through solid obsidian but the only thing she could find were some strange runes she found from stones, rocks and mountains around the Wonderland. Some of the runes were carved to a tine pebbles while the biggest ones were kilometers in diameter and were carved to those obsidian mountains. She couldn't understand the purpose behind the runes nor could understand what they meant but she guessed that what ever they were, they were the reason for why the Wonderland was the way it was. Marisa spent over four months exploring the World of Ice and Snow and the Wonderland until she packed her things again and started heading towards the Ruins of Vina.

On her way over the plains of the Makai she found something she didn't expect. A temple on top of a rocky hill in the middle of a otherwise completely smooth plain of obsidian. Marisa flew closer to it to inspect it. She didn't know why Shinki hadn't told about that place. It seemed much more interesting than any of the other places she had visited. The architecture looked really different from the style she had gotten used to in Makai. The temple looked really old, older than any other building she had seen so far. It was also in ruins. Parts of the walls and roof were missing, but other than that the place looked really well tended. The temple resembled those gothic churches she had seen in some books about the outside world. She couldn't find a reason for why it existed nor who was tending it because she couldn't sense even a single presence during her stay at the temple although she felt like she was being watched all the time. That place too was filled with those strange runes she had found from the Wonderland but this time it seemed like they had been written down like text. Marisa was frustrated when she couldn't understand what was being said written with those runes.

She spent about a month trying to achieve some deeper level of understanding of that temple but once she didn't get any further in days she decided to leave for the Ruins of Vina which were supposed to be the last location for her to visit before returning to Gensokyo. The ruins were located on the other side of the city and a bay of a huge sea the shores of which the city was hugging. It was a long flight till Marisa finally reached the ruins that were standing on a mountain side. They looked old, so old in fact that it was hard to tell what they had originally looked like before they had turned into those crumbling ruins they currently were. There were only few pillars and archways remaining of the structure that Marisa assumed was being called Vina back in the days. The ruins weren't much larger than the temple she had seen before but they definitely weren't as well tended as the temple. Marisa could also feel strong magical forces being at work there. Evil forces to be precise but it was only just a feeling she got. Nothing solid proved to her that there would have been any real danger. Those ruins like the two most recent locations she had visited had those same runes carved to it. Marisa was getting really curious about those runes and decided to ask about them from Shinki before she would return.

She explored the ruins and their surroundings for two months until she was sure that there was nothing more to be learned from them. She packed her stuff and headed back to the City of Makai and Pandemonium where she planned to ask Shinki about those runes. Once she got back she headed immediately for Shinki's throne hall. This time she was not being stopped by that annoying maid with swords. Once Marisa finally got to the throne hall she was greeted by Shinki who appeared to be expecting her.

"Well how was it? Did you find Makai interesting?" Shinki asked merrily while smiling. She really had to be bored to be so delighted to get visitors.

"Yes, I did but there's one thing that keeps bugging me. While traveling around Makai I found some strange runes from almost every corner of it. What are those?" Marisa asked straight away. Shinki looked at her for a moment before standing up from her throne.

"From where did you find these 'runes'?" Shinki then asked with curious look on her face.

"Well everywhere. They were written in walls and on landscape as well," Marisa responded with impatient tone and look on her face while waiting for Shinki to explain the runes for her.

"I see. They are not actually runes. They are characters that form an ancient and powerful language. Only two people in this or any other world besides me can speak that language and only one of them speaks it natively like I do. That language is so powerful that I used it as a source of power to create this world. Look closely those words are being written everywhere in this world. Not just to places where you visited," Shinki said and pointed at the polished walls of Pandemonium and indeed, those walls were full of that strange writing.

"Woah! Can you teach me that language?" Marisa asked with astonished look on her face.

"Sadly no. Your mind would break under the knowledge and I sense a certain recklessness from you, so it would be dangerous to trust you with the knowledge. I'm sorry," Shinki respnded and cracked a gentle smile.

"Awww, and here I was hoping to learn what they meant," Marisa sighed with disappointed tone and look on her face.

"Don't look so disappointed. In the end they are not meant to be known by any other than those who know it natively. The only other who knows the language but doesn't speak it natively was being taught by me and I did that only because I had a great trust in her," Shinki explained with that gentle smile still on her face.

"I see, well thanks any way," Marisa responded politely. She had really hoped that she would learn the meaning behind those runes.

"The pleasure was mine. But I assume that you're going to return to your own world now? Please say hello to Alice for me, would you," Shinki said and grinned a little. Marisa twitched a little. Alice? Was she the one to who Shinki had taught that language? Marisa promised to do that before walking out from the throne hall with confused look on her face.

"Is Alice truly able to use that language? If so then I have to aks her about it," Marisa thought to herself as she walked out from the fortress. Once she got out she performed the ritual Reimu had taught to her to open the portal back to Gensokyo. Her bags were full of those new plants and rocks with those strange runes on them She was exited to get back to her home to examine them but she was even more exited to see Reimu again and how she was doing. She hopped through the portal. She was already getting used to jumping between realities. When she finally felt a solid ground beneath her feet and could open her eyes she looked around herself. She was on the edge of the Forest of Magic near the Misty Lake. She took flight immediately and headed for her house. She planned to leave her bags to her house and head straight for the shrine and that's what she did. Once she reached her home she left her bags, grabbed something quick to eat and took flight again but this time without her broom because while flying around Makai she had accidentally crashed it to a rock when she hadn't paid attention. She could still use it for flying but it required some fixing and she didn't want to bother flying with a broken broom nor fixing it now. She was too exited to see Reimu again after all these months.

"I wonder how she and her boyfriend are doing," Marisa thought to herself as she flew towards the shrine. She landed on top of the torii that lead to the shrine as usual and looked at the shrine. She tried to see if Reimu was anywhere to be seen. Finally she saw how Reimu stepped out from the shrine holding a fairly large basket in her hands. She watched how she sat to the terrace and started readying her tea like she always did during this time of the day. Marisa hopped off from the torii so Reimu could see her.

"Yo, long time no see," Marisa yelled at Reimu and waved at her as she started walking towards her while smiling widely. At first Reimu looked at her like she was seeing a ghost but once she realized that it truly was Marisa and that she had returned from the Makai, she stood up and ran up to her with her arms stretched for a hug. Once she reached Marisa she hugged her tightly.

"You lonely up here while I was away?" Marisa asked playfully while Reimu hugged her tightly.

"Not, really. It's been eventful but I'm just glad you're back," Reimu said with joyful tone and look on her face as she looked into Marisa's eyes.

"Speaking of which. Tell me everything that has happened while I was gone," Marisa said and grinned when Reimu finally let go of her. Reimu then just cracked a gentle smile and signed Marisa to follow her. Marisa looked how Reimu walked back to the terrace. She followed her there with a bit confused look on her face. Reimu then sat down pulled the basket a little closer and signed Marisa to take a peek inside.

"What's this now?" Marisa asked with confused and a bit amused look on her face before she took alook.

"Just see for yourself," Reimu responded with gentle smile on her face. Marisa then took a look and immediately when she saw what was inside she looked at Reimu with unbelieving look on her face and mouth gaping open.

"Y-you cannot be serious... H-how old is she?" Marisa asked with unbelieving tone while she looked at small baby girl in the basket.

"Just little over one month. About two moths after you had left I got to know that I was gonna have child," Reimu responded while looking at her sleeping child in the basket.

"Wow... You truly were fast in getting a kid," Marisa said with amazed look on her face while looking at the baby.

"I had to. There's no way of telling how much time I have so I had to use this opportunity," Reimu responded and gently touched the bald head of the baby.

"May I?" Marisa then asked if she could hold the baby.

"Sure. Just be gentle," Reimu responded and lifted the baby from the basket and into Marisa's hands. Marisa looked at the child for a moment.

"What's her name?" Marisa then asked with a gentle smile on her face while still looking at the baby.

"She doesn't have one yet. We really havent' thought about it," Reimu responded and shrugged her shoulders.

"How about Reimu? She looks so much like you that when she grows up I'm not sure if I can tell you two apart," Marisa said and laughed.

"Only over my dead body," Reimu responded and she too laughed.

"By the way where is the fater?" Marisa asked and looked around herself.

"Oh, he is visiting the village. I sent him to do some shopping. He really has to take care of the shrine when I'm exterminating youkai," Reimu said and laughed a bit.

"Speak of the devil," Maris said and pointed at the stairs leading away from the shrine from where they could see Reimu's husband returning. Reimu stood up to greet him but she didn't get to open her mouth when he interrupted her.

"Reimu, you're needed in the village. Something's happened in there. Oh you've returned miss Marisa. You should go with her. It looked pretty serious," Reimu's husband said when she reached Reimu. Marisa then put the baby back into the basket carefully and walked up to the to ask what was going on.

"What exactly happened?" Marisa asked with concerned tone and look on her face.

"I don't know exactly. Only thing I know is that it is related to that weird Rumia girl," Reimu's hurband replied with as concerned look on his face as on Marisa's.

"Rumia... Marisa come, this might be a really serious matter," Reimu said and took flight. Marisa just nodded and followed her.

"Please be careful, both of you," Reimu's husband said after them as they flew towards the human village. The flight didn't take them too long until they landed to the gates of the human village and immediately when the guards saw them they took them into the village and to the supposed incident scene. For some reason Marisa had expected for something like this to happen. In fact she had thought that it was only a matter of time until Rumia would get herself into trouble with one way or another.

They soon reached the scene where this supposed incident had happened. There were many people standing around the place and looking at one person who was sitting in the middle of them Reimu then pushed herself through the crowd to see what had happened.

"Okay what's going on and what exactly has happened?" Reimu yelled and the crowd became quiet.

"That crazy, freaky bitch almost tore my hand off," The man who was sitting in the middle of them all yelled while holding his arm. Marisa walked closer to him to take a better look.

"Isn't that one of those kids who used to bully Rumia?" Marisa thought to herself when she finally recognized him.

"Gods... I feared that this might happen sooner or later," Reimu said with worried look on her face. She then continued, "Anyone saw where Rumia went?"

"Bitch ran away after she had attacked me. I bet to cry to her mother," The man groaned from the ground. Marisa then walked closer to him and saw that there was a bat next to the man on the ground.

"Hey, for what were you planning to use that bat for?" Marisa asked with strict look on her face and her arms crossed over her chest.

"None of your business. You're as much of a freak as that Ru-," The man retorted but didn't get any further when Marisa kicked him to his face knocking him to the ground.

"You don't know how much I'd like to do that again. I bet that people haven't kicked your teeth in enough. You should try it out more often. Makes your face look much more prettier," Marisa said and spat onto the man before looking around herself to see where Reimu had gone. When she didn't see her anywhere she figured that she probably had already left for the house in which Rumia lived. Luckily Marisa remembered where that was. She wanted to tell Reimu that the guy who Rumia had supposedly attacked was one of her bullies.

Marisa started running to the direction of Rumia's house and it didn't take her long to catch up with Reimu since Reimu wasn't really running.

"Hey Reimu, there's something you should know before you do anything. The kid who got hurt is one of Rumia's bullies. I've been keeping my eye on her for a while now and that kid was one of those who bullied her. He also had a suspicious bat with hi-," Marisa started to explain once she caught up with Reimu, but she was interrupted shortly.

"I know. As a shrine maiden it is my duty to know about all of this," Reimu said after stopping and looking at Marisa.

"So... You're not banishing Rumia from the village?" Marisa asked with a bit more lightened up look on her face.

"I have to. I promised that if Rumia shows any hostility towards any human of the human village she would be banished. As the one who made that promise I also have to be the one to carry out the punishment or the people will do it themselves," Reimu said and sighed deeply.

"What!? Don't you understand that the one who should be punished is that kid back there not Rumia. You think it is okay to bully someone?" Marisa asked with accusatory tone and look on her face.

"No, I didn't mean that. Of course it's wrong but I couldn't have intervened even if I had wanted to. The partition of humans and youkai is very strict outside the village and I don't even have to mention what it is within the walls of the village. Even magic itself is seen as something that should not be practiced in any circumstances. If I were to defend a youkai it would give people a wrong idea about them. They would stop seeing them as inhuman. People have to fear youkai and I have to make sure that it stays that way," Reimu said with a bit sad look on her face.

"Reimu...," Marisa simply uttered, but Reimu just lowered her hand onto Marisa's shoulder and sighed.

"Please don't intervene. I'll try to get this over with as gently as I can," Reimu said and turned towards Rumia's home and continued walking towards it. Marisa looked at her for a moment until she disappeared between the buildings. She then sat down to a nearby bench to think about all of this.

"It's not right. No matter from which angle you look it is not her fault. She was given unfair terms," Marisa thought to herself while looking how few people walked past her every now and then.

"What gives Reimu the right to deny someone the right to defend oneself. If there's someone who thinks that anyone can take that right away from someone else... to hell with them," Marisa thought while sitting there and leaning against her knees. She sat there and waited for Reimu's return. It took about half hour till she finally saw Reimu walking towards her. She stood up from the bench and walked up to her.

"So...?" Marisa asked with arms crossed over her chest.

"She was scared to death. I found her sobbing from the corner of her room once I had gotten past her parents," Reimu responded and shrugged her shoulders.

"And you drove her away from her home? The only place she could feel safe?" Marisa continued with accusatory look on her face.

"What else could I do? I gave her day to pack her things and leave the village. She's a youkai after all and violence is in the nature of youkai. We cannot let that sense to awake within her. If she develops a hatred towards humans while staying here the results could be catastrophic," Reimu responded to defend herself.

"Violence is in the nature of youkai!? Then am I a youkai? Or are you a youkai? How many youkai we have exterminated just because they felt annoying. Besides I know so many youkai that I concider as my friends and know that they would never harm me," Marisa retorted with pissed look on her face.

"That's different. What we do, we do out of necessity. People are defenceless and ignorant when it comes to youkai. We cannot change the way they see youkai. They are heartless killing machines and monters to them. There's no way we can ever hope to change that fact," Reimu retorted to her defence but it was then when they both saw Rumia walking past them. By the looks of it she hadn't bother to take anything with her. She was pale and looked terrified and angry at the same time. Marisa could clearly see that she had been crying a lot recently. All and all she didn't look healthy. She just stared at Reimu and Marisa while alking past them.

"Monster... Is that so...," Rumia simply uttered while continuing her slouching walk towards the gates of the village. Marisa and Reimu decided to follow her but kept their distance just in case. They looked how Rumia walked through the crowd who was calling her names and throwing items at her as she made her way to the gates. Once she was on the other side the gates were closed behind her and the people seemed content about what had just happened.

"Good riddance," Marisa heard one of the villagers yelling after the gates had been closed. Marisa then looked at Reimu with unbelieving look on her face.

"Like I said. What they see is only a monster. If people were to got used to the presence of youkai they would be wiped out eventually. Think about it. For an example the owners of a Kirisame shop just got a kid recently. If Rumia were to be around she would grow up in an envirioment that would accept the presence of youkai which would lead to her having a wrong idea about youkai," Reimu responded with empty look on her eyes.

"You knew that this would happen from the start, didn't you?" Marisa asked with unbelieving tone and look on her face.

"Yes, yes I did. But there's nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening. *Sigh Just go home and try to forget about all of this. It wont take long until the village does so too...," Reimu uttered, took flight and headed back to her shrine.

"How can you be so cold hearted?" Marisa thought to herself as she watched how Reimu flew into the distance. At first she thought that she should go after Rumia to try to talk to her but then she realized that she most likely wasn't in the mood to talk. After thinking about it for a while Marisa decided to head home as Reimu had told her to.

She flew over the forest looking down trying to see any trace of Rumia. She couldn't comprehend how one's life would change if they had to go through all of this. She soon reached her home. She knew that she had planned to visit Alice but she just didn't feel like it. She also wasn't planning to go to sleep either. She wanted to study those things she had brought back with her from the Makai. She really didn't have anything else to do in fact. She had let her pet spider out from its terrarium a long time ago and it was currently roaming free in her house so there wasn't need to feed it. She had also fallen behind with her research while she had been in Makai so she had to caught up with it. She took her plants and rocks she had gathered from Makai and started making notes about every single sample she had taken.

This took her hours to do. She carefully went through each of the samples until she had a ten centimeters tall stack of notes and it was two hours past midnight. It was then when Marisa finally sighed for relief and stretched her arms and legs a bit. She then stood up from her chair and took the pile of notes to her room. She was planning to go to sleep and she thought that she really deserved a proper sleep now. She returned to her living room to tidy it up a bit before going to sleep but it was then when she saw something strange from the outside. An orange glow coming from behind the forest. It seemed familiar but she couldn't just place it.

"Wait... F-fire? It's fire! It's coming from the village," Marisa exclaimed. At first she looked around like looking for something but then she remembered that her broom was currently broken and there was no use in trying to fly with it. She had to go without it for now. She took her hat and ran outside taking flight immediately to the direction of the village.

"What's happening in there? What's causing it?" Marisa thought to herself with worried look on her face while flying to the direction of the village. Something like that was very unusual and Marisa had no idea what could possibly cause the whole village catching fire.

She flew over the forest while constantly keeping her eye on that burning village. Luckily it seemed that the fire didn't spread across the walls of the village but that also confirmed that the cause of the fire what ever it had been had been inside the walls when it happened. She couldn't think of any other reason for the fire other than an accident at the blacksmith or a youkai. For some reason the latter didn't appeal for her.

She finally reached the village and saw how people were rushing through the gates to get out. Those who had already made it just looked at the burning village. Marisa landed next to a group of people to get some answers.

"What in the world is happening here!?" Marisa yelled while shaking her hat because few embers had landed onto it.

"We have no idea. We were sleeping when suddenly we were woken up by the roaring of the flames. No one knows the amount of casulties or if there even are any. Though I highly doubt that everyone made it out alive," One of the villagers responded.

"I saw the shrine maiden flying over the wall to take a look what had possibly caused it," Other villager continued and pointed at the wall.

"Reimu... Thanks for the advice," Marisa then said took flight and headed towards the burning village. Once she was on top of the village she saw that about two thirds of the village had truly turned into a blazing inferno. If there still were people left in there they wouldn't last even a minute in there.

"Reimu," Marisa yelled when she finally saw Reimu floating above the village.

"What in the oblivion is going on!?" She continued and grabbed Reimu from her shoulder.

"She came to take her revenge," Reimu said and pointed down at the village where there was a fairly large unburned circle.

"Who?" Marisa asked while looking at the direction where Reimu was pointing. It was then when she saw Rumia standing in the middle of the circle staring back at them.

"S-she caused this? Why?" Marisa then said out loud when she had recovered from her surprise.

"I told you, she's a youkai and youkai are inborn killers. It was just a matter of time until she would brake free. I shouldn't have allowed her to even exist," Reimu said while staring coldly at Rumia who had started to rise from the ground slowly.

"Reimu listen to yourself! You yourself talk like a youkai now. She isn't here to just kill for no good reason, you drove her out from her home when she needed compassion! Acts like that will surely make you enraged," Marisa yelled at Reimu.

"This again!? Was I given a choice? No! I had to do it, and I had to be okay with it. What has happened is in the past now and there's nothing we can do to change it. Now at least help me to save these people," Reimu retorted and glared at Marisa.

"If you claim to know what's right and what's wrong thing to do, then save them yourself," Marisa responded with cold look in her eyes.

"Marisa, don't do this now. Look at her and tell me is there any other choice. Marisa, it is she or us now," Reimu yelled at her and pointed at Rumia who had risen to their level from the ground and had summoned a black blade that she was currently holding in her hands. Marisa stared at Rumia and she stared back. The spark in her eye didn't remind her any more of that shy and scared youkai girl she had met in the village, no. This one was fearsome and ruthless. She could clearly see from Rumia's eyes that she had nothing to lose. She was ready to face humanity who had rejected, shunned and driven her out from her home. No talking was gonna resolve this. Marisa realized that Reimu was right. There was nothing else they could do other than to exterminate her. She then looked at Reimu, sighed and nodded.

"We can keep arguing after this little incident has been taken care of," Reimu said with annoyed look on her face and readied her yin yang orbs. Marisa summoned her own orbs to protect herself because she didn't have her broom with her and she knew that because of that she was more vulnerable.

Once they were ready both of them charged at Rumia who didn't seem to even care that she was facing two of the most skilled youkai hunters out there. Reimu looked at Marisa, nodded and they split up. Marisa started firing her own projectiled at Rumia while Reimu did the same. Their plan was to surround Rumia so that she couldn't avoid them but Rumia just simply dove under them, readied her blade that grew three times its original size and started swinging it at them. At first it was easy to dodge Rumia's blows but once she conjured another sword that was the same size as the other it became hard becuase she could now swing at both of them. Marisa and Reimu kept circling around Rumia until Rumia suddenly unleashed a bunch of blue beams from her body that she used as cutters. She tried to slice Reimu and Marisa while chasing them with her blades forcing them to stray further away from each other. Once she had separated Marisa far enough from Reimu Rumia focused solely on her. She started chasing her in the mid air forcing her to descent closer to the burning ground. Reimu started chaisng Rumia but she had to keep her distance because of those beams Rumia emitted.

Rumia kept chaisng Marisa through the burning alleys. She didn't let Marisa to fly any higher with her own attacks that flew over Marisa's head. Marisa was forced to fly using only those alleys as her ways to try and shake Rumia off. She even had to fly through a burning house once by blasting a hole to its wall because she was running out of escape routes. It was then when Reimu managed to take a short cut, get between Rumia and Marisa and blast Rumia with her yin yang orbs. It didn't take long for Rumia to recover and to continue her attacks. This time she didn't bother to fly and instead she destroyed the house through which Marisa had flown with few sword swings. She started demolishing the village as she swung her swords at Reimu and Marisa sending shockwaves of energy at them with each of her attacks. Marisa and Reimu could easily avoid the shockwaves and the burning splinters that Rumia sent while rampaging through the village but because of the fires it was easy for them to lose their track on Rumia. Every time they did one of those shockwaves caught them by surprise and almost hit them but they still managed to avoid them each of them. They kept dodging as well as they could until suddenly it became quiet. Marisa and Reimu floated quietly in the mid air looking at the raging flames below them waiting for Rumia to attack. Their wait wasn't long when Rumia charged through the roof of one of those houses enveloped in flames. This time she charged at Reimu. This attack caught them of guard and Rumia managed to get her hands onto her. Reimu and Rumia wrestled in the mid air for a moment until Marisa had recovered herself and rammed at them with all she got. This wrenched Reimu free from Rumia's grip and while they had been on each other's throats Reimu had managed to place few charms on Rumia which exploded shortly after she had gotten free from her grip.

"Nice one! Did we get her?" Marisa said while looking at the smoke cloud in the mid air that was clearing slowly. Her question was answered shortly when they saw a black figure charging away from them in really high speed. They could hear the whoosh of air as Rumia retreated into the distance.

"Well at least we got her to back away for now," Reimu said and shook some soot from her clothes. They then flew to the gate where the villagers who had made it out were waiting to hear what had happened. However Marisa and Reimu didn't have time to explain. Marisa quickly flew over the crowd skimming through each of the villagers and then she returned to Reimu.

"It's just like I thought. Those who didn't make it out of the village weren't just unlucky. In that crowd there's no one who was part of that group who bullied Rumia. This isn't just some random killing spree. She has targets," Marisa said with serious look on her face after returning to Reimu. Both of them were still floating in the mid air when one of the villagers yelled at the, "What in Bishamonten's name took you two so long to return. Could you make yourselves useful and help us to extinguish these fires instead of just floating there as a useless pair of witches!?" The villagers clearly hadn't heard the fight Marisa and Reimu had had against Rumia and that really irritated them but they knew that they needed to stay focused.

"Targets you say? Do you know any other possible targets that Rumia could go after?" Reimu asked with concerned look on her face.

"Yes, I'm afraid. There are few, that being us... and your family," Marisa said with concerned tone and serious look on her face.

"It was you who ruined her life. She'll surely go after you and those closest to you," Marisa said with thoughtful look on her face.

"If you're starting this ag-," Reimu started yelling at Marisa but Marisa interrupted her quickly by saying, "Just listen, I'm just saying that she wont be satisfied with only killing you, she'll go after your family."

"My family... Wait, they are alone at the shrine! They have no way of defending themselves! Come we must hurry, Rumia can very easily be already there," Reimu then yelled when she realized that it was her husband and child that were in the most immediate danger. Marisa just nodded to her as they charged towards the Hakurei shrine in the hopes of making it there before Rumia. But if only Marisa had known what was to come. If only she had known that this was going to be the darkest night in her life.

Marisa was nervous and angry at the same time while she and Reimu were flying towards the shrine. She knew that they had no other choice than put down Rumia but their earlier quarrel hadn't left her mind yet. Reimu was abusing her power as a shrine maiden or at least she hadn't done the right thing and Marisa didn't like that a one bit. She knew that she was gonna have a long talk with Reimu after all this was settled.

"After we make sure that my family is safe we're gonna put end to Rumia's rampage," Reimu groaned after they saw the shrine in the distance.

"Let's not get ahead ourselves. Rumia might have already reached the shrine, we can't know how fast she is when not interrupted. Let's just prepare ourselves for the worst," Marisa replied with concerned look on her face. Reimu just groaned a little but Marisa couldn't tell what she was saying. They reached the shrine in no time after their tiny conversation and once they reached it they landed onto the pathway and looked around themselves. It was quiet and dark. Just like the night normally was around the shrine.

"Keep your eyes open," Reimu said and started slowly walking towards the shrine with determined look on her face. Marisa was gazing all around herself but couldn't spot even a trace of Rumia. She walked a bit further but she was forced to stop when she accidentally hit Reimu's back once she had stopped for some reason. Marisa recovered her balance and was just about to ask from Reimu what had made her stop but she got the answer almost immediately. Rumia was standing just in front of them on the shrine's terrace and by the looks of it she was dangling something from her right hand. Reimu took out her purification rod and took a step forward but before she could do anything else Rumia threw the object from her hand to Reimu's and Marisa's feet. The object rolled on the ground until it hit Reimu's feet and stopped. Marisa peeked over Reimu's shoulder to see what it was but the only thing she saw was Reimu's husband's empty eyes staring back at her from his severed head. Marisa took a step backwards.

"Oh gods...," Marisa uttered in shock, but Reimu didn't even budge. She lifted her gaze from the head of her dead husband and stared at Rumia.

"Oh crap, she's trying to provoke Reimu into a rage," Marisa thought to herself while watching Reimu.

"I should have exterminated you on sight the firt time I saw you! I'll make sure that this will be messy," Reimu yelled at Rumia before she charged at her.

"Reimu wait," Marisa yelled after her but Reimu didn't listen. She took flight and charged towards Rumia. Rumia dodged it easily but couldn't try to counter strike Reimu when Marisa ram her through the shrine's wall. Marisa gathered herself from the pile of wood and paper she had brought in with her. She shook her head and saw a familiar figure on the floor of the shrine.

"Reimu's child! Rumia hasn't gotten her hands onto her yet," Marisa thought to herself when she saw Reimu child still sleeping in the basket. After that Rumia started to recover herself and stood up from the rubble. Marisa didn't have time to hesitate. She had to keep Rumia away from the child. She took a wooden plank and hit Rumia's face with it though physical attacks didn't really have any effect on youkai. However it was still enough to give Reimu enough time to get to the scene and blast Rumia with her yin yang orbs. The orbs and Rumia flew through the backwall of the shrine creating another hole to its walls.

"Reimu, your kid is still alive, Rumia hasn't touched her yet," Marisa said and pointed at the basket on the floor. Reimu just looked at it for a moment, then at Marisa and nodded slightly with serious look on her face. However they were quickly snapped out from it when they heard a familiar scream from the outside. Rumia had started to recover and she wasn't pleased.

"Let's do this," Reimu then said and looked at Marisa. Marisa nodded and they both ran through the hole in the wall. The first thing Marisa saw when going outside was Rumia's hand being lunged at her face. She managed to dodge but just barely. She turned around and saw Rumia's hand being sunken to the wood. She ripped it free and turned around towards them. Reimu didn't hesitate and immediately shot few charms and needles towards Rumia. Rumia just covered her face and ran at them. She then lowered her hands from her face and tried to swipe Reimu with them. Reimu just ducked away from Rumia's swipe but in the middle of her attack Rumia summoned her sword again and turned towards Marisa. Rumia hit her straight to her stomach and sent her flying towards a nearby tree. At first Reimu was gonna run after her friend but when Rumia blocked her way she had no other choice than fight.

It took couple of minutes for Marisa to return to this world after the hit she had taken and the collision with the tree. The world around her was blurry but it was clearing fast. She hold her head as she stood up slowly. Then she felt the pain around her stomach. She didn't have time to look if she had gotten any severe injuries. Only thing she knew was that she needed to help Reimu and get back into fight. She was just about to run to the direction of the sounds of the battle when she saw Reimu flying through the wall of the shrine. Splinters flew to all directions as reimu hit the ground and rolled few meters. Reimu coughed twice but stood up immediately.

"Took your sweet time in slumber land," Reimu bridled after inspecting herself to see that she wasn't hurt too bad.

"I got blown clear, nothing really I could have done," Marisa retorted but they didn't have time to quarrel when Rumia once again charged at them. They both managed to dodge Rumia's charge after she had run through the shrine's wall.

"I haven't really gotten anywhere while you've been out. I've just wasted my own energy here. It's like nothing works on her," Reimu yelled ower the sound of Rumia's beam after she had turned around and treid to cut them in half.

"And your plan?" Marisa asked while dodging Rumia's sword and making sure that she wouldn't catch her by surprise like the last time.

"We're gonna do the following," Reimu yelled back at Marisa and showed a one certain charm in her hand. Marisa knew that she couldn't yell her plan out loud or Rumia would hear it and then the plan would be ruined. But she still understood somewhat about what Reimu was going to do. She had never seen her use that certain charm so she expected it to be special. But she also knew that she would need to distract Rumia. If Rumia was trashing about constantly Reimu wouldn't have much of a chance to use that charm.

Marisa just sighed. She knew that it was going to be dangerous and she really didn't like to act as a human target for Rumia, but she really didn't have any choice. As soon as she got a chance between Rumia's attacks she started responding with her own. It seemed to do its work. Rumia was concentrating on Marisa and seemed to have forgotten Reimu's existence. Marisa kept firing at Rumia while constantly retreating slowly herself to keep her distance. Then Rumia pulled out her sword again and charged at Marisa with all her physical strength. For an ordinary human this attack would have been impossible to dodge but Marisa had gotten used to youkai's immense physical power and speed and understood that great power would require great counter strength to stop it and this was the fatal flaw that she had found from the physical attacks of youkai. When Rumia was literally on touching distance on Marisa she dodged to her side but left her foot on Rumia's path which made Rumia to trip over and fall to the ground. This was a perfect moment to strike. Rumia might have been powerful but she was slow to recover. Marisa took off from the ground and flew upwards while constantly firing at Rumia. Once high enough she summoned her orbs, stopped and headed back down towards Rumia. She started firing even more projectiles while flying towards Rumia who was about to stand up from the ground. But before she could Marisa ram her back to the ground with all she got while being protected by her orbs. All those orbs exploded on impact but kept Marisa safe. She backed away from the crater she had created on impact and waited for the smoke to clear. But once it cleared she saw a figure walking towards her. It was Rumia. It was just like Reimu had said. Nothing seemed to affect her. Marisa gulped and backed away one step but before she could take any more steps back she saw a familiar red and white figure charging from behind Rumia. Reimu had finally found a perfect window to attack and she used it immediately. Rumia was so focused on Marisa that it seemed that she was completely oblivious to the world around her. Rumia didn't notice Reimu until it was too late for her to try to dodge. Reimu clinged to Rumia from her back locking her other arm around her thoat and stabbing her neck with a needle that was in her other hand. Rumia cried out in pain as the needle pierced her skin. Reimu didn't let go and dag out her charm that she was planning to use. She grabbed a tuft of Rumia's hair and tried to tie the charm around it but as soo as it touched Rumia's hair Rumia let out a terrible scream that distracted Reimu long enough that Rumia managed to grab her and throw her to the ground from her back.

"Reimu," Marisa yelled and tried to charge in to help her freind by getting Rumia off from her but her attempt was met with a sharp kick to her chest by Rumia that send her flying backwards and left her gasping for air. Marisa could just watch unable to stand up as Rumia lifted Reimu from the ground, grabbed her by her ankles with her other hand and started swinging her around hitting her to ground, to shrine and to trees effortlessly. When Rumia was finally done with swinging Reimu around she finally let go off her sending her flying to one fo the shrine's pillars. Reimu hit the pillar shattering it in the process. Once she finally fell to the terrace Marisa could see how Reimu's limbs were dislocated. It was truly a miracle that she hadn't been ripped apart. Only thing she could do was cough out some blood and try to drag herself away from Rumia with her left arm that was still somewhat intact. Rumia however just simply walked up to Reimu and grabbed her by her neck lifting her up.

"No! Leave her alone," Marisa managed to wheeze out but Rumia didn't even hear her. Marisa could just watch with horrified look on her face as Reimu reached out with her left hand towards the basket that she could barely see through the broken wall of the shrine just before Rumia slammed her throat first to a broken plank that was pointing from the wall severing Reimu's head from her shoulders.

Marisa couldn't guess for how long she just sat there looking at the scene before her in complete silence. She just stared at Reimu's body with horrified look on her face.

"S-she's gone... I can't believe this...," Marisa uttered. She had finally caught her breath so she could speak somewhat normally. But this however finally caught the attention of Rumia who had just stood there looking at the body of her foe just laying there. She finally stepped down from the terrace and started walking towards Marisa.

"...and I'm next on the line...," Marisa thought to herself when she finally got her eyes away from Reimu's body. She stared at Rumia's emotionless face as she walked closer and closer to her.

"No... This isn't the way I'm going down... I'm Marisa, the Great Witch of the Forest and the world will kneel before I'll be broken," Marisa yelled in fury as she stood up from the ground while supporting herself by leaning against a tree to face her enemy.

"No... you will fall...," Rumia simply uttered before charging at Marisa who was a bit distracted by the fact that Rumia spoke. She hadn't heard her utter a single word since she was banished from the village. But even if a little distracted by it Marisa still managed to roll away from Rumia's attack but the rolling hurt more than she had hoped for. She had taken such a beating that it was a miracle that she could even stand. Rumia then just glared at Marisa, turned towards her, summoned her sword and went for another attack. Marisa didn't have strength to roll away so she had to rely on her magic. She summoned a magical shield that surrounded her protecting her from Rumia's attacks. The shield could keep Rumia's attacks at bay but Marisa could feel how the shield required more and more power as Rumia kept hitting it.

"Crap, it's just a matter of time until she'll break through," Marisa thought to herself while trying to come up with something to save herself. Then she remembered. The spell she had treid to create but which had failed. Well not really failed but the results had been so scary that she had abandoned it. It was her only way out from that situation. There was nothing else.

She let Rumia hit her shield one more time. Each time Rumia had hit her shield her attack had recoiled a bit which was enough for Marisa to charge her spell. As soon as Rumia hit Marisa's shield again and was recoiled Marisa canceled her shield, took a steady stance and readied herself. She started charging her hands while remembering the spell in detail. As soon as she was ready to fire and Rumia was going for the finishing blow Marisa unleashed her roaring beam while yelling, "DARK SPAAAAARK!"

It was just like the first time she had tested it. Her vision became enveloped in darkness as the beam left her hands but this time she wasn't scared. The beam was fueled by all the anger and fury she could muster from herself compressed into that one attack.

"HYAAAAAAARGGH," Marisa screamed as she poured all her power into that attack. It didn't take long till her whole vision was blackened and her hearing was blocked by the roaring of her spell so she couldn't even tell if she had hit Rumia. She just had to hope for that was the only comfort she could get. She poured all her power into that spell and when she was finally too tired to continue she let the spell fade away. Marisa fell to her knees in exhaustion as she started slowlly regain her vision and hearing. She kept staring in front of her to see if her spell had had any effect and once the little light the moon offered finally lit the place again she could see Rumia gripping tightly to the handle of her sword that she had sunk in to the ground. To Marisa's despair and surprise Rumia was still standing but she could tell that the spell had finally done some damage to her. This was enough for Marisa to force herself to get up and start gathering power for a new attack. She herself didn't have any power left but she knew a trick or two on how to overcome this problem and how to gather power from one's surroundings. As she gathered more power from around herself she started to glow in bright blue hue. Rumia too had started to recover from the hit she had taken but before she could stand up properly to attack Marisa she was met with an image of Marisa flying straight at her in incredible speeds while being surrounded with a ball of light. Rumia just covered her face as Marisa rammed into her and took her with her as she kept flying in a straight line. She then rose a bit higher and rammed Rumia and herself in to the ground breaking even stones that happened to get on their way. Dirt and stones were flying as Marisa drove Rumia into the ground leaving a trail to the ground behind them.

When they finally stopped Marisa was hoping that she had dealt at least the same amount of damage as earlier but was met with a shock of Rumia's sword being swung at her after when the dust had cleared. She had thought that her attack was powerful eough to damage Rumia so an immediate counter attack was unexpected. She had no time to dodge and she could feel the blade slicing her and sending her flying backwards. She flew through the air until she finally hit the back of the shrine and fell to the terrace just like Reimu had just few moments earlier. Her vision was blurry and the pain she felt around her stomach was unbearable.

"This is it... this is it... This is where I die," Marisa thought to herself while laying on the terrace holding her stomach and listening to the footsteps coming closer to her. The waves of pain washed over her as she saw that blonde figure standing next to her. She accepted her defeat as the blonde reached out for her throat and lifted her from the terrace. Marisa could just hold onto Rumia's wrist to keep herself from breaking her neck in Rumia's grip. She stared into Rumia's red and cold eyes as they stared back at her own. But then something red and white caught her attention. It was the charm. It was still stuck in Rumia's hair. It hadn't been tied properly around the tuft of hair it was wrapped around. A one quick pull and the charm would wrap itself tightly around Rumia's hair.

"A gift from Reimu," Marisa managed to utter as Rumia lifted Marisa higher readying herself to smash her to the ground like she had done with Reimu but this allowed Marisa to reach for that charm by letting go of Rumia's wrist.

"Nothing fancy, just a one quick pull," Marisa thought to herself while clenching her teeth together followed by few sweat drops rolling down her forehead. When she finally got a hold onto that charm she pulled with all she got winishing that knot Reimu had started.

After that Marisa let herself to fall limp for she knew that it was all she could do but surprisingly she wasn't slammed to the ground and instead felt herself falling to the ground and Rumia's grip separating from her throat. She gasped for air as she pushed herself away from where Rumia was standing. When she finally had caught her breath again she dared to look at Rumia. Marisa was shocked. Rumia was trashing around uncontrollably, screaming and holding her head trying to get rid of that charm but every time she layed a finger onto the fabric of that charm a hissing sound of flesh burning could be heard and a small cloud of smoke could be seen rising from Rumia's hand. Marisa could clearly see that Rumia wouldn't be able to fight in that condition but she also knew that since the charm hadn't knocked her out or sealed her away she was still huge threat and she could still kill Marisa if she didn't get away from there quickly.

Marisa didn't hesitate and stood up as fast as she could while still holding her stomach. She could feel and smell how her own blood had stained her clothes around her stomach. Once she finally got up and was about to run away a strange noise stopped her. It was the crying of a baby coming form inside the shrine. Marisa knew very well what caused the noise and that she didn't have much time to waste but she couldn't help herself and hobbled in to the shrine where the basket and the baby were still miraculously unharmed. She looked at the baby in the basket for couple of seconds before kneeling before it to pick it up. But it was then when a sudden and scary thought crept into her mind. An idea that she thought was long gone. Finish the job right here and now. End the Hakurei bloodline when there's no resistance. She could return to Mima and continue her research like she had originally planned.

She couldn't move even if she wanted. These thoughts scared her because it was her who had come up with them. These thoughts weren't planted into her mind by anything. It was her own wickedness that had crept to the surface at the worst possible moment. No matter how much she wanted to save her friend's child her body and mind wouldn't listen.

"I promised to help you in defeating the Hakurei bloodline if you helped me in achieving immortality."

"I'll have you know that your 'ordinary Marisa' is a long lost memory. From now on I'll have to start calling myself 'the mighty witch of the forest'."

"I gave them a chance to raise the child as a normal human but if anything out of ordinary happens she'll be banished from the village."

"So a youkai gets mercy from the shrine maiden but when she encounters a human witch she'll exterminate the human without hesitation."

"Mima, come back!"

"The job of the shrine maiden is to help the humans to stay on the path of humanity. When one strays from that path it's shrine maiden's duty to get him or her to turn back. And we're not allowed to stray from that goal as long as there's hope left for that human."

"The shrine maiden's job usually ends in early death. My mother died when I was only five."

"If I don't hurry the other students will come after me and bully me. I'm sorry, but I have to go now."

"A youkai, that's how you'll end up. That's how we all end up. Human magicians have that thing in common."

"You know what separates youkai from human? The fact that human soul is countles times more powerful than a youkai soul."

"A human killing a human is still a crime, especially if the killer is native to Gensokyo. Reimu doesn't want you to turn into youkai but once she would learn about your deeds and that you're already on the edge of becoming youkai she probably couldn't take it."

"How about Reimu? She looks so much like you that when she grows up I'm not sure if I can tell you two apart."

"Only over my dead body."

"Only over my dead body," Marisa uttered after a her mind had gone through an internal war with itself. Going through all her memories from the last years up to this exact moment. Marisa then snapped out from her trance and heard the vicious screams of Rumia. She then picked up the basket and started to run. She didn't know where. Her instincts just told her to run as far away as she could. It was actually the only thing she could do really.

"Don't worry Reimu. As long as my heart beats no one will lay even a single finger on you," Marisa thought to herself while running down the steps leading away from the shrine.

"But it's not your heart," She could hear her own voice replying to her own thoughts in her mind.

"SHUT UP," Marisa yelled and shook her head in frustration. She could still see the smoke coming from the direction of the village. She needed to get the baby to safety. Nothing else mattered. She run through the Forest of Magic as fast as she could. She had no idea how severe her injuries truly were but she could just assume the worst because the pain she felt on each individual step she took was unbearable. She felt a burning desire to just slow down, stop and lay down in pain but she didn't allow herself to do that. Instead she forced herself to endure it no matter the cost. She ran for countless of minutes. The forest was big even if you were to fly over it let alone run through it. At that point Marisa wasn't sure if she'd make it and once she heard Rumia's ferocious scream coming not so far behind her she became even more desperate.

"She's after us. How can she know where I am?" Marisa thought to herself in desperation. It was then when she realized the severity of the wound on her stomach. She was leaving behind a trail of blood that was dripping from the guts that were spewing out from the open wound on her stomach. The trail of blood was easy to follow especially for a youkai.

"Oh gods, oh gods," Marisa uttered to herself in pure fear and agony as she realized the hopelesness of the situation she was in. But even then she didn't allow herself to give up for she needed to assure that the baby, Reimu, as she had started to call her would get to safety. And so she ran and ran and ran. She ran for her and the baby's life until she finally saw a glimmer of light coming from between the trees of the forest.

"Don't worry Reimu, we're almost there," Marisa uttered with exhaisted tone and look on her face accompanied by few drops of blood dripping down her lips. But it was then when the worst possible scenario Marisa could think of happened. She tripped onto something. She couldn't tell what it was, but she felt something grabbing her by her ankle and making her fall to the ground dropping the basket in the process.

"Damn it," Marisa yelled while holding her leg with her hand and trying to drag herself to the basket from where the baby's crying could be heard with her other hand. After tripping over to something a loose branch had pierced her thigh making any further running or even walking impossible for her. A few tears rolled down her cheeks as she treid to drag herself to the basket but to her shock and surprise she saw how an unexplainable gap appeared under the basket, two hands came from it, wrapped themselves around the basket and pulled it into the gap right before Marisa's eyes.

"Wh-what... no... NO! BRING HER BACK," Marisa yelled in desperation after witnessing how the basket and the baby just simply disappeared right before her eyes. She dragged herself to the spot where the basket had been but couldn't see anything that would explain what had just happened.

"Please, someone! Help me! Why am i doing this alone!?" Marisa screamed and puched the ground with her fist and started to rip the grass from the spot where the basket was taken away like trying to dig it back. Then she collapsed the the ground without any strength or willpower to continue her escape. She just dragged herself to a nearby tree, leaned against it and started to sob. She felt how each time a tear fell to her open wound a wave of pain washed over her reminding her of how miserable and helpless she was in that situation. She just closed her eyes and treid to relax. It was going to be her final moment so might as well try to make it as calm as possible. Then she just waited.

At first she heard nothing. Just the calm nightly wind and the leaves rustling but soon she heard foot steps closing in on her. They were coming from the shrine's direction. There was only one who that could be. Marisa opened her eyes a bit. She saw a figure that was coming in her direction. By the looks of its movement it was sniffing the air and ground while letting out some vague groans and grunts. It was Rumia there was no doubt about it. She walked closer and closer to Marisa's location until she could finally distinguish her facial features. But what she saw surprised her. Rumia had shrunk in size. She looked like a small human child more than a vicious youkai that had just butchered Marisa's best friend. By the looks of it Rumia had completely forgotten their fight just few moments ago. She didn't look like she was on a furious hunt. More like investigating smell that she just simply found sweet, that being Marisa's blood.

"It is just a matter of time until she'll find me and then I'm history," Marisa thought to herself and sighed.

"You're all alone. There's no one who you need to protect now. Fight! The great witch of the forest shouldn't surrender as long as there are options," Marisa could hear her own voice saying inside her head. It was the same voice that had earlier tried to get her to kill Reimu's child so she tried to ignore it but she couldn't.

"Fight! Those who surrender will fade in obscurity but those who rise up and fight till the very last breath will last forever," The voice yelled inside Marisa's head.

"Yeah, fight, sure... with what exactly. I have nothing... left...," Marisa mumbled to herself but soon came into realization that she in fact truly had one option left. She quickly concentrated her mind and closed her eyes.

"Come on, come on. Mima told me that I should never do this but desperate times call for desperate deeds. Now, now... The Kirisame family's daughter... I can do this, even if I havent' seen her in person I should still be able to concentrate on her if I focus," Marisa mumbled and tried to find any kind of trace from her target onto which she could land a spiritual anchor and get a quick get away.

"There! I can feel her. May the gods forgive me about what I'm going to do... and may I survive this," Marisa muttered with closed eyes as she started reciting her spell in hopes of surviving all of this. She kept repeating the spell over and over again each time faster than the previous one until she ran out of air, took a deep gasp to continue and then fell limp.

It didn't take even a minute until Rumia found the source of the smell that had attracted her to it. She had no idea why the smell was so welcoming, she just had to find the source of it. In fact she had no idea on anything that surrounded her. Her memories had been wiped out. She had no idea where she was, what she was doing, who she was nor even what she was. Only thing she knew was that she was hungry and the smell was calling out for her. Upon reaching Marisa's unmoving body Rumia kneeled before it and took a deep sniff. It was like drug to her for it didn't take her even two seconds to let herself dig into the corpse before her. She kept consuming the blood, flesh, skin, guts and bones until nothing remained. Not even a single stain of blood. And even then she craved for more. She couldn't get enough. Something about the stench of human blood made her head spin. She didn't know that it was human blood nor what human even was. She just knew that what ever it was she had to get more. Only thing she had spared was a tiny piece of bone that she held between her fingers and looked at it. She then squeezed her fingers together grounding the bone to dust and a wide smile spread to the her face.

But Marisa was completely unaware of what Rumia had done to her body for she was sleeping calmly on the hands of a mother who had no idea that the child sleeping calmly on her hands wasn't her child anymore.

The next few following years were a bit blurred in the child's head. In the end the child was named Marisa, Marisa Kirisame for the first word she uttered when she was just under one year old was 'Marisa'. It became quite clear very soon that Marisa wasn't your ordinary child. She learned to speak in just little over a year old, learned to walk few months later and could solve math problems in the age of two. The Kirisame family was amazed and pleased at the same time. No one in the village had ever seen kid that intelligent. As she grew older Marisa started to help with the Kirisame family's store. Well helping is a bit of an overstatement. Rummaging through the products was more accurate. She inspected every rare item she found from the store and sometimes even took something with her from time to time. As she grew older she soon met one certain friend of Kirisame family. A half youkai and half human kalled Morichika Rinnosuke. He was the main suplier when it came to the items the Kirisame shop was selling though Rinnosuke kept and sold the most interesting objects himself in his store that Marisa got to visit every now and then when her family was stocking on items to sell.

But while Marisa was intelligent and ever so curious child she was also very antisocial and her thieving of objects she found interesting usually got her into trouble. Though every time she borrowed something from Rinnosuke she always returned it back to him. All and all she was a strange kid. But in the end Marisa started to go to school when she had reached a proper age for that. In the schood of the human village there was a new teacher called Keine. It wasn't unusual for Keine to have to punish Marisa for she skipped lessons and was sure to hit back if anybody dared to pick on her. But even after all this Marisa was the most succesful student in the whole school. She had a perfect grade in almost everything which Keine and Marisa's parents found utterly amazing. Marisa's father admitted that he wasn't very pleased with her daughter's behaviour but her grades in school amazed even him. But what amazed the people the most was what happened one evening when Marisa was just a second grader in her school. In the middle of the night a night guard knocked to the Kirisame family's door. Marisa's mother opened the door and to her surprise the guard was carrying ever so morose Marisa from her collars. It appeared that Marisa was caught trying to sneak outside the village. Marisa's father found this most outrageous but he was left speechless when Marisa straight up claimed that she was gonna become a magician. After that little incident Marisa stopped going to school completely and started spending her days at the Rinnosuke's shop, Kourindou. Marisa's father begged that Rinnosuke would try to convince Marisa to stop being involved with magic but there really wasn't anything Rinnosuke could do. He was a half youkai so he was naturally interracting with magic in his daily life and since Marisa was visiting him every day he was unable to do anything.

This continued for months which made Marisa and her father really distant from each other. People actually started finding it strange that Marisa still returned to home at all but there still was one certain reason why she didn't leave, her mother. Even when Marisa was skipping her lessons, stealing other people's property or even when she claimed that she was going to become a magician her mother didn't get angry with her even once. Every time Marisa returned home from Rinnosuke's shop late during the night there was a warm meal waiting for her and when Marisa returned home before her parents had fallen asleep Marisa's mother insisted on reading her a bedtime story before she would go to sleep. And on top of everything when Marisa asked her mother's opinion on her becoming a magician her mother simply responded by encouraging her to pursue anything that she thought was gonna make her happy. This was the reason why Marisa didn't want to leave home. Her mother was making her happy and she was the reason why she could stand her not so loving father. This all changed however one day when Marisa returned from Rinnosuke's shop during the middle of the night as usual. She had finally convinced Rinnosuke to let her borrow one of the grimoires in his store. She was planning to start reading it before she went to sleep. Once she reached her home and stepped inside she went to the kitchen to eat like always. This evening her mother had already gone to sleep before she had arrived home. She sat before the table and started eating the meal that was left for her. She ate her meal casually unknowing that her father was still awake. She had left the book she borrowed next to a staircase that lead upstairs where her room was so it wasn't surprising that her father found it when coming down stairs. Marisa however was completely oblivious about all of this. Only when she heard her father stepping to the kitchen she realized that he was even awake.

"Marisa, what is this?" Her father asked while holding the book she had borrowed from Rinnosuke,

"None of your concern. Just a book I was planning to read," Marisa responded indifferently without even looking at her father.

"You got this from Kourindou, didn't you?" Father continued while looking at the book in his hands.

"So what if I got it from there?" Marisa responded without changing her tone.

"I knew it. These thing don't belong to the human village and certainly not to our home. This lunacy has gone far enough. When will you realize how idiotic you make yourself and your family look when you keep chacing these... these pointles fantasies?" Marisa's father continued with annoyed tone and look on her face.

"Look, I don't expect you to understand what I'm after. In the end you just want me to live a simple life, to get married, inherit the shop and waste my life. Well too bad. The fact that you've wasted your life doesn't mean that I'm required to follow in your footsteps," Marisa retorted and stood up from her chair. She was just about walk past her father when he grabbed her from her wrist.

"Don't you talk to me like that," Her father growled between from his teeth.

"What you're gonna do? Sit on me? Besides give that book back to me, Rinnosuke lend it to me not you," Marisa said and tried to take the book from her father but her attempt was met with a slap to her cheek. Marisa fell to the floor while holding her cheek with shocked look on her face. She could barely control her rage which would have ended with her blasting her father with spell.

"We're done talking about this. You wont leave this village anymore. You're bringing disgrace to your family," Her father growled and walked to his and his wife's bedroom. Marisa layed on the floor for few minutes, not crying, but clenching her teeth together and trying not to scream in rage and frustration. She had had enough.

"Hah, how is he planning to keep me in the village. That man couldn't keep even a chicken in an iron cage even if he treid," Marisa thought to herself as she stood up from the ground while still holding her cheek. She then immediately walked to her parents' bedroom and listened through the door. Her father wasn't gonna fall asleep any time soon but Marisa had all the time in the world to wait.

She waited for an hour until she started hearing snoring from the bedroom. She finally could open the door without being noticed. She sneaked in and made her way to the bed in which her parents slept. The nightstand on top of which the book was was on the other side of the table. She then recited a simple telekinesis spell, lifted the book from the table and dragged it to her. It was quicker and more silent that way. Indeed, even if Marisa had her new body she still was her true self and remembered all the tricks and spells she had learned years ago. She took the book and looked at it.

"Hmph, even this is just a simple grimoire without any real magic in it but actual magical grimoires are just so hard to find near the human village," Marisa muttered to herself. She then left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. She took a pen and a piece of paper and started writing. Once she was done she left the note she had written to on top of the table. In the note it read, "No need to have a warm meal ready."

She stepped outside. She hadn't even bothered to take anything with her when leaving for she considered nothing she owned useful to her outside the village. You see she was about to leave for good now. She knew exacactly where she would live and she didn't feel like she was welcome to her home anymore. In fact she didn't feel like she was welcome to the human village neither. And yes, she actually considered the Kirisame family to be her actual family. Becoming a kid and growing up again wasn't as simple as she had thought at first. Her memories were the same as in her last body, heck even her personality hadn't changed too much but she still had developed an attachement to that place. Especially when she had no memories of her actual parents. The first time when she had ran from home for the first time had been so long ago that she had no idea what her real parents were even called nor where they lived or what they did for living. The earliest memory that she had about herself was when she learned to use the fireball spell and that was almost over hundred years ago.

While walking through the dark and quiet village and thinking about all of this a scary thought crossed her mind. This was going to be her final body. According to Mima when that mind transferring is done without any preparations it becomes impossible to do it again. If she truly would succeed in making herself immortal in this body, how long it would take for her to finally forget about Reimu, how they had been friends or even her own name.

"Wait... How can I even be sure if Marisa is my true name if I don't have any memories about the people who named me?" Marisa thought but soon shook her head to get rid of those thoughts.

"Not that it matters anymore. What has been, has been and nothing more," Marisa thought to herself even if she knew that it wasn't true. The events that had caused her to end up in that situation would haunt her mind for a long time and she knew it very well. She still had nightmares about that night and about Reimu's death.

"I just need to get back to my house and get back to my research so I can forget about everything," Marisa mumbled with annoyed look on her face. However she wasn't gonna rush straight to her old house. She was gonna return her the book she had just borrowed to Rinnosuke. Now when she had decided to return home she didn't need that anymore. Sneaking out from the village was easy. After she had been caught for the first time she had started to use different method every time she sneaked out. Luckily for her it was fairly easy because it wasn't too rare to find a cart or something else parked next to the wall of the village. Once again she found a cart that had been parked next to the wall. It seemed that it wasn't moving anywhere any time soon either since one of the wheels seemed to be missing.

"I could have used this during those nights when I was still planning to return," Marisa bridled and climbed on top of the cart. It wasn't hard to jump on top of the wall from there and once she did that she hopped to the other side of the wall. Rinnosuke's shop was just past the Canal of Willows which was fairly easy to get across. She had spent fairly much time at the canal. That was one of the rare places in Gensokyo where you could see and even talk to youkai without any real danger. Kappa usually set up stalls there to sell their goods. Marisa however wasn't interested in watching youkai this time. As soon as she reached the canal she just crossed it by using one of the many bridges built to go over the canal. From there it wasn't going to take long till she would reach Rinnosuke's shop.

After a minute or two she finally saw the familiar light coming from between the trees. It was Rinnosuke's shop, Kourindou. Marisa thought that since there was still light coming from the windows Rinnosuke was still awake so she didn't bother to knock. She just marched straight to the front door and opened it.

"Yo, Kourin, you still awake?" Marisa yelled while stepping inside.

"Even if I had been sleeping I wouldn't be anymore. Why are you here again at this hour. Aren't your parents worried about your absence?" Rinnosuke asked from Marisa with a bit confused look on his face. Rinnosuke had semi short silver hair, had a pair of glasses and was wearing a black and blue robes. He also had a small bag tied around his waist that he was always carrying with him.

"If they are planning to worry about me then they'd better start now. I wont return back to them," Marisa said and slammed the book she had rented onto Rinnosuke's table.

"What are you talking about? Why this tantrum all of a sudden?" Rinnosuke asked and picked up the book just in case to see that there wasn't any damage. Marisa then just showed her cheek to Rinnosuke. It was still quite red after her father had hit her.

"Oh... So you and your father finally got into a fight?" Rinnosuke asked carefully trying not to make Marisa any angrier.

"Wouldn't call it a fight since he finally gathered enough confidence to hit his child. If you think that I would stay under the same roof as he even a one more night, you're wrong. I've had enough. I'll leave the village and live my life just as I want," Marisa said but continued before she turned around to leave, "And I wont be needing that book anymore. Just so you know."

If you're not returning home then where will you live? You're way too young to live on your own let alone outside the village or to defend yourself from a youkai," Rinnosuke said with concerned tone and look on his face.

"I have thought about one place. Nicely secluded from the cares of the world. And there's no need to say that I cannot defend myself. You know that I have power. You've seen it yourself," Marisa said and cracked an unamused grin.

"Yes, yes, I know you're gifted when it comes to handling magic but people really shouldn't even practice magic," Rinnosuke responded.

"Same story different teller. You know how many times I've heard that?" Marisa asked and shrugged her shoulders with a bit annoyed look on her face.

"Maybe that's because it is just that way. Magic is a wonderful thing but when used carelesly it becomes volatile and dangerous. And yes, I know I'm not gonna talk you out of this. But there's still something I want to give you. I've always known that this day would come sooner or later so I prepared a gift for you," Rinnosuke said and started rummaging through his drawers. Marisa just looked at him and tilted her head.

"Here it is. I made this small furnace for you. It is useful in cooking and heating oneself but also a formidable weapon that doesn't use the users magical powers making it safer to use. I thought that you could use something like this," Rinnosuke said and gave a small eight-trigram box to Marisa. Marisa took it and looked at it for a moment.

"What is this exactly?" Marisa asked after inspecting it.

"I call it Mini-Hakkero. It is a machine that combines the technology from the outside world and magic from gensokyo. It basically uses the magic from its surroundings to create powerful blasts of heat and energy. Basically the users doesn't even have to have any magical abilities themselves since the Hakkero does all the work," Rinnosuke explained with proud look on his face. He was clearly proud about his creation.

"Well thanks... I guess...," Marisa said and put the furnace into her pocket.

"...Thanks for everything but I'm gonna go now," Marisa continued nodded to Rinnosuke and turned towards the door to leave.

"Wait just a moment more. After your parents find out that you're not home anymore they will come looking for you here first. What should I say to them?" Rinnosuke asked with still worried look on his face.

"Just tell them that they don't need to worry. That where ever I might be I will be at home," Marisa responded with a slight grin on her face and stepped out from the front door. Rinnosuke looked at the door for a few seconds after Marisa had left like waiting for her to come back but soon he just sighed, stood up and walked to his room to go to sleep.

It had been a long time since Marisa had walked through the forest of Magic. The layout of the forest had changed significantly while she had been growing up in her new body. But even after all those years Marisa still remembered very well how to navigate through the forest and how to find her house within it. Even during the night when everything was dark and seemed to be alive and moving. One thing she realized that had changed was her confidence in herself. Now when she hadn't had a proper encounter with any non humans in over ten years she felt uneasy. She had felt this same feeling before. Long, long time ago, but she didn't remember something that had happened such a long time ago. That she wasn't the first young human child to set foot into the Forest of Magic alone with clear goal in their mind. But what was different from the first time was that this time Marisa was ready and cabable of defending herself. More than ever. The final moments before had switched bodies were still very well in her mind and she knew really well that a lonely human would be a tempting prey for a youkai. Especially if that said youkai can manipulate the darkness around its prey.

But Marisa wasn't your average human child. She knew how to move through the forest like a shadow of a cat. Almost completely invisible and unnoticable even for the eyes of the youkai that lurked in the dark and soon she finally saw a familiar opening in the forest. The moon shone brightly from the cloudless sky revealing a familiar structure in the middle of the opening. Marisa stepped out from the forest onto the open and looked around herself. The house, the garden, everything was still intact. Someone had taken care of it. If not, the garden would be a complete mess and the weather would have taken its toll upon the house. Marisa took few careful steps towards the building she had used to call her home but now seemed like an alien territory. She walked up to the window to make sure if it was all safe. She reached for the eaves and had to stand on her tiptoes to just barely see through the window but the small glimpse she got from the insides of the house revealed it being completely dark and silent. At least she didn't notice any signs of life from the inside. She then made her way to the terrace. There wasn't even a one leaf there. It was all clean. But she still couldn't feel the presence of anyone. She then just gulped and looked at the door in front of her.

"Home... sweet home?" Marisa thought to herself and grabbed the handle carefully. She then pressed it down to see if she could get even inside and surprisingly the door opened. That someone who had taken care of her house didn't bother to even lock the door. Maybe it was the sign of welcoming or sign of deception. Despite her doubts Marisa stepped inside. It was dark but the moon shining through the clean windows lit the place just so that one could see around themselves. The place was clean. Too clean to indicate that it was used for living. In fact it looked like someone was just cleaning the place up and then leaving it. It didn't make any sense but the complete silence finally confirmed that she was alone in the house. She sighed for relief and shut the door behind herself. She then made her way to the kitchen where she found a candle. She picked it up and lit it with a weak fire spell to see better. After that she started to look around herself. The living room that used to be a huge mess was now clean. Everything had been moved to their respective places but nothing had been stolen as far as Marisa could tell. At least she didn't realize that anything would be missing. All the grimoires, staffs and even her magic research notes where neatly stacked and set to the shelves and tables. And on top of one of those tables she found an awfully familiar looking terrarium. It was the place where her pet spider, Lulu, had lived. Though now it was empty and there was no signs of spider webs anywhere. Certainly even if nothing had killed Marisa's pet it had died due to the old age. Spiders usually didn't live more than few years and Lulu was old one even before Marisa had to escape from Rumia.

"Hope you had a peaceful life after I was gone," Marisa muttered while looking at the terrarium on the table. She then turned around and walked to her working room. Where she stored her most valuable research material and her greatest achivements. The door was near the staircase to the upstairs and when she reached the working room she found the key to the room from the lock of the door it would open. Marisa pressed down the door handle and it opened but from the inside she didn't find the same clean air and instead there were piles of dust scattering all around after she opened the door and air flowed in. Marisa caughed a little because of the dust but once it cleared she could take a look at her old working place. It didn't look nearly as well tended as the rest of the house had seemed. In fact it seemed that no one had set foot there after she had disappeared. All the notes were laying around and the book she had used as a source material the last time she was in this room was still open from the same page on the table at the back of the room. She then walked up to the table and opened few of its drawers to make sure that everything was on place. She opened up one of them and picked up a pile of papers. She inspected them for a moment and once assured that they had been untouched she was about to put them back but from between the papers there dropped one paper she hadn't checked. This one seemed older than the rest. She put the other papers away and picked up the one that had fallen. She swiped the dust off from it and took a look at it. The paper had a drawing on it. Two figures, a taller one and a smaller one and a text that read, " Me and mommy, Marisa three years old." Marisa just stared at the paper with empty look in her eyes. Seeing something made by you during the time that you have long since forgotten for a person most important to you who you had also forgotten truly has an effect on a person. Staring at the paper gave Marisa a Déjà-vu. It felt almost surreal how real it felt. That she was just reliving her past. A tear rolled down Marisa's cheek but the look on her face didn't change. She then just folded the paper carefully and put it into her pocket making sure it wouldn't be damaged. She then left the room and shut the door behind herself. There was only one place she would need to check before she could truly call this her home again. It was her own room in upstairs. She started walking up the steps that seemed like they had been cleaned just yesterday. They even reflected the light coming from the candle a little but Marisa wasn't even confused by all of this anymore. She just walked upstairs and when she finally reached it she just casually opened the door that she knew led to her room. When she saw her room she wasn't surprised. It was as clean as the rest of the house excluding her working room. There was no dust and books had been nicely placed onto a shelf. She walked up to her table but once she reached it she was met with a surprise. Her broom that she had used for flying was leaning against the table. It was fixed. She saw no damage on it and she could feel that it was ready for action when ever she would need it. She then put the broom back leaning against the table and turned around to see if she could sleep in her bed. She was tired now. It was way past midnight and if she wanted to continue her research now she would need to rest. She walked up to her bed but what she saw shocked her deeply. She found her hat from on top of the bed. She knew it was her. The fabric felt familiar, the size matched and even the old blood stains were there. And next to the hat there was a set of witch's outfit just her size coloured in black and white. She pciked up the clothes and looked at them. Who would go so far to keep her house intact and to even make new clothes for her? How could they even know that she was still alive, her exact measurements for her clothes and that she was planning to return? All this gave Marisa a slight headache and she didn't have the energy to think about all of this now. So she just pushed the clothes away and layed down to her old bed. She was so tired that she fell asleep immediately and didn't wake up until it was way past the midday tomorrow.

Marisa couldn't describe how much she had missed the feeling of sleeping in her own bed. It was way past midday and she was still just laying there and covering her face from the sunlight that came through the window. Now she felt like she was truly at home. Though nothing was like they used to. Usually Marisa would have visited Reimu right after she had woken up but that was in the distant past now.

When Marisa finally managed to get up from her bed she looked at the pile of clothes on the ground. The witch's outfit that she had found from on top of her bed layed on the ground.

"I'll probably have to start to get used to them," Marisa thought to herself and got dressed up in her new outfit. It felt surprisingly comfortable. More so than the old outfit that she had made herself back in the days. She then took the purple hat from the ground. Since it was purple and stained with old blood it really didn't fit well with the rest of the outfit.

"Needs some recolouring," Marisa muttered and took the hat with her as she walked downstairs to get something to eat. She knew that the house had been empty for a long time but she was hoping that maybe the one who had taken care of the house would have left something to the kitchen. She was quite hungry by now. She made her way to the kitchen after leaving the hat to a table. She opened a cupboard and surprisingly it was stacked with food. Marisa just stared at the sight in front of her for a moment.

"Oh...," Marisa uttered with surprised look on her face, grabbed a piece of bread and returned to the table to eat. It was uncommon to even find bread from Gensokyo so she thought that might as well eat now when she had some. She sat onto a chair and started to eat but soon remembered why she preferred Japanese food. But she still finished her breakfast and started to inspect her hat. She was gonna paint it black so it would match the rest of her set. She then looked outside from the window. It was still somewhat sunny but she could clearly see that it was gonna rain soon. About fifteen years ago she wouldn't have even cared if it rained or not for she would go out to hunt youkai no matter the weather but now she just didn't feel like it. Actually she didn't feel like going out to hunt youkai ever again.

"It was fun while it lasted... Someone else will have to run around hunting youkai from now on. The days of the great youkai hunter Marisa are over... Now it's just Marisa, Marisa Kirisame," Marisa thought to herself while looking out from the window. She then stood up to retrieve some paint. She knew she had some around. Or at least used to have. She fetched her notes and research material on immortality too. It was better to get to work now when she only had eighty years at most till it would need to be completed. After finding the paint and notes she returned. She put the notes away for a while until she would be done with her hat. Then she started to recolour her hat. Brushing black paint over the purple. Every bloody spot was covered with that paint until the hat was completely black just as she had thought. She then stood up and looked the hat from each direction. She then nodded after she was confident that it was good. She then moved the hat away from the table to dry in some other place so that she could get to her research as soon as possible.

While arranging her papers she saw how the first droplets of water hit the window of her house. She just sighed, spread the papers to the table, took a pen and started to go through her notes. First minutes then hours started to pass while Marisa was reading her notes. The rain was drumming the windows and roof of her house. If she had an option Marisa wouldn't have done any research during a day like this since it was easy to get distracted or fall asleep while it rained. It was almost hypnotizing and finally after hours of sitting silently and reading made Marisa fall asleep even though she had had a proper rest last night.

Marisa didn't know for how long she had slept when she finally was woken up by this awfully familiar voice that she couldn't just place. She was certain that she knew that voice but couldn't remember how. Finally the voice managed to wake up Marisa from her sleep.

"Wake up already. It is the night during which you should sleep," The familiar voice said. Marisa lifted her head from the papers on top of which it had layed while she had slept. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. She looked out of the window. It was still raining. She had probably slept for about hour or two by the looks of it. She then looked around herself to see what was the source of the voice. And it didn't take her long to realize.

"Long time no see... Marisa," Alice said while standing next to the table. Marisa almost jumped up from her chair for she didn't expect to see Alice there.

"A-Alice!? H-how... why... you're here?" Marisa stuttered in surprise. Truth to be told she had thought that Alice would have just simply moved on with her life after Marisa didn't appear at her home again.

"You shouldn't be that surprised. I was just preparing and maintaining your house until you would return. That's what friends do, no?" Alice said and cracked a gentle smile.

"So it was you... But how? You even prepared these clothes for me. How did you get the exact measurements? How could you even have known that I was still alive?" Marisa asked with dubious look on her face.

"Simple really. You'd think that those who know how you've maintained yourself through all these years would think that you would be killed so suddenly. I know your kind. Desperately clinging to every last bit of hope there is and I'm not saying that with negative meaning behind it. But I can tell you that you made it quite easy to find you. Not every day there's a human born into the village that is so incredibly intelligent for her age and gifted in magic. Art that should be practiced through decades to master it. Though when it comes to the clothes and measurements, well those are just a way to show my kindness. I got your exact measurements from Rinnosuke after I told him that I was planning to give it to you as a gift and after convincing that I had no hostile intentions. In the end 'the witch of the forest' has to look the part," Alice explained with her hands akimbo and a look on her face that showed that she thought it should've been obvious.

"Well thanks. But please don't call me that. It is now in the past. And if I want to achieve immortality I have to stay focused on the future. You see, after escaping from my old body I didn't have time to do the required preparations that the ritual needs to be performed safely. I'm now stuck in this body. Unable to switch ever again so if I don't succeed in making myself immortal during this life span I wont succeed at all," Marisa explained her situation with a bit annoyed look on her face.

"Didn't you say that you were intending to keep your humanity back in the day?" Alice then asked with a bit more serious and confused tone.

"Yeah, what about it?" Marisa asked back like there was nothing weird about it.

"Becoming immortal is same as casting your humanity away. And besides have you thought what will happen after the world expires around you? Immortality isn't as much a blessing as it is a curse. You should think about it more carefully," Alice said with concerned look on her face.

"Sigh* Okay, okay, I'll think about it. But even you can't deny that knowing that you'll die almost certainly before your tenth decade is nerving," Marisa responded while skimming through her papers.

"Well certainly if you see death as the end. But in the end it isn't me who will be judgning you. Do as you please but do so after thinking about the alternatives. But any how. I'll get going now before the rain gets even worse. Take care," Alice said and waved Marisa a good bye before stepping outside. Marisa just nodded as a response and just watched through her window how Alice opened her umbrella and flew into the forest shortly after.

"Pfffft, I've weighed my options long ago," Marisa muttered with a slight grin on her face. She wasn't gonna turn down her research especially now when it was the only thing in her life. Now when she didn't have a close friend to visit every day or when youkai hunting had lost all its glamour. Only when she would be done with her research and would have succesfully made herself immortal would she allow herself to have a well deserved rest and during that she could finally think what she could use her immortality for. Indeed she hadn't even planned what she would spend those countless days on after she would succeed in immortality. Or if she would even succeed. Marisa just smirked a little and got back to her research. She felt much more refreshed now after Alice's visit and didn't feel sleepy at all anymore.

Days passed and Marisa started to settle down to her old home. She didn't go out that often so she wasn't bothered by youkai too much. Every now and then some stray youkai would appear at her door step but she would just usually blast it away without a second thought. She didn't like to be disturbed especially in the middle of her research. Only actual visitor she had from time to time was Alice and she would just check on her every once in a week. Never actually staying for a tea or to have longer conversation with Marisa. Well except this once. Alice was once again checking on Marisa like she did every week but today she arrived a bit more early than she usually did. It wasn't even midday yet when Marisa heard a knock from her door. She knew that it was Alice though it was weaird for her to came at this time. Nevertheless she responded with her casual, "Come in with your own peril. If you're not somebody I know I cannot guarantee that you will step out though." The door opened and Alice stepped in.

"What brings you here this early in the morning," Marisa asked without even lifting her gaze from her papers.

"The same as every other day. Waiting for a right time to strike and eat you like always," Alice said while shrugging her shoulders. She then walked next to Marisa and put a newspaper onto Marisa's table on top of her research notes.

"No, but in all seriousness take a look at this article," Alice said with much more serious tone and look on her face.

"I was making notes here. What is it now? A Tengu newspaper. Don't you know that they are really unreliable. Reading them makes you just more stupid," Marisa bridled with annoyed look on her face.

"Maybe so but I checked this one myself. The article is real. Take a look at it yourself," Alice said and pointed the biggest article on the front page of the newspaper.

"What's this all about...?" Marisa kept on bridling while lifting the newspaper and taking a better look at it.

"A mansion appears... near the Misty Lake... the owner is from the outside world...," Marisa read some parts aloud while skimming through the article.

"I checked it myself, there's a red mansion that appeared next to Misty Lake. Don't you feel like this is a some sort of an incident?" Alice asked and looked into Marisa's eyes.

"Well of course it is. Someone should do something about that," Marisa blurted, pushed the newspaper aside and got back to her research.

"Really? Wouldn't you agree too that you spend too much time indoors. You need something to do from time to time. There's a red mansion appearing out of thin air. Doesn't that make you interested in it at all?" Alice asked while flailing at Marisa's door indicating that she should go outside and investigate.

"Nah, don't feel like it. I don't resolve incidents anymore. Let the humans take care of their own problems. But you can still keep your eye on the situation. Tell me if the mansion grows a pair of legs and starts chanting something about rabbits. Then I'd be interested," Marisa said with sarcastic tone and look on her face without lifting her gaze from her notes.

"Sigh* Could you even pretend that you're worried. You know very well that incidents are serious matter," Alice insisted with strict look on her face.

"Yeah, and that's why I'm not resolving even a single one anymore," Marisa retorted.

"Fine, do as you please. Just know that people of Gensokyo need someone to rely on during situations like these. Even if they don't show it. People need you. You should actually go to the village and listen for a while. There are stories about a witch and a shrine maiden who sacrificed themselves for the humans of Gensokyo," Alice said before stepping out and shutting the door behind herself without even saying good bye.

"Pffft, we were only cleaning up the mess they had caused themselves. Better learn to take care of your own problems. Telling stories of how people died wont make it up for the fact that the one who sacrificed themselves is now dead," Marisa muttered to herself.

"Nothing is worth it if in the end you find yourself dead. Not the good of the people, not even the saved lives because they wouldn't have done the same. They would have just ran away as well as we should have," Marisa bridled and got back to her research.

The day passed slowly for Marisa since the writing and reading wasn't exactly the most exiciting way to spend one's time but eventually the sun set and Marisa allowed herself to finally call it a day and go to sleep. She put her rsearch material into her drawer and walked upstairs to change her clothes and go to sleep. Once she reached her room she switched to her pajamas and crawled to her bed.

"Heh, youkai hunting my ass," Marisa muttered witha sarcastic grin on her face as she pulled her blanket over herself. She then just layed there for a moment. She then happened to lay her eyes onto her old alchemy stand that was just laying there. She hadn't used it after she had returned to her house.

"Might want to give it a go. Alchemy might come in handy sooner or later. I should see if my skills have gotten rusty...," Marisa muttered and closed her eyes. But as soon as she closed them she heard a faint clink from the direction of her alchemy stand. She opened her eyes and looked at the stand for a moment.

"Are you developing a mind of your own?" Marisa asked sarcastically and grinned but the look on her face switched into seriousness as soon as she heard another clink and this time she even felt what caused it. The earth was shaking slightly. Her bed was muffling it but she could still feel it. She then stood up from her bed and pressed her ear against the floor. There was no doubt about it. Something was going on. It couldn't be an earthquake it just didn't feel like one. She then stood up and looked outside.

"Okay what the heck is going on here?" Marisa asked with annoyed tone and look on her face as she opened her window to see better what was going on. But as soon as she got her window open a feral youkai flew through her window frame breaking it in the process.

"Hey that was my window," Marisa yelled as she gathered herself from the ground. She then looked at the youkai that had flown into her room. It seemed humanoid enough but not too intelligent. It was one of those weaker youkai who usually just ran around the forest during the night.

"I don't feel like charging a rent from you so you can get the hell out," Marisa yelled while blasting the youkai with a simple spell that send it flying through the same window it had used to get inside causing even more damage in the process. Marisa then walked up to the window again and looked outside to see what was going on. She looked up to the sky and saw dozens upon dozens of youkai all flying around and seemingly attacking each other.

"What the heck is going on out there?" Marisa muttered out loud as she watched one youkai fall into the forest and create a fairly loud thud while doing so. She then saw another charging after it. Marisa then left the window, ran out from her room and downstairs to take a better look. She ran down the stairs and towards the front door. On her way she saw the Mini-Hakkero on her table. She remembered what Rinnosuke had said about it and decided to take it with her just in case. She hadn't had any encounters with youkai since her clash with Rumia so it wouldn't hurt to be prepared. She then opened her front door and stepped outside. It was then when she saw how the dark night sky was lit with, not stars but endless sea of beams and bullets as the youkai ripped each other to shreads.

"What in the living hell caused this...?" Marisa wondered out loud as she just stood there watching the scene in front of her wearing only her pajamas. Then out of nowhere one youkai fell onto her yard throwing dirt and grass everywhere. The youkai was just about to stand up again when a powerful blast of energy followed blasting the youkai and blowing it clear. She looked up and saw another group of youkai that she assumed to be the responsible for blowing up the one that had fallen to the ground. And now it seemed that they had taken interest in Marisa.

"Oh crap," Marisa yelped as she ducked for cover as the youkai started to shoot at her now. She then peeked behind the fence of her terrace that was the best cover she could find and shot her own projectiles at the youkai. This however just made the youkai to get even more exited and only increased the number of attacks aimed at her. Marisa then dag out her Hakkero and looked at it for a moment.

"Didn't Rinnosuke say that this thing draws its power from its surroundings, not the user?" Marisa thought while squatting behind her cover.

"Well there's hella lot of energy on my surroundings now so might give it a try... and I know just the spell to test this with," Marisa thought and cracked a slight grin to her face. She then rolled out from her cover and took aim at the youkai who had been firing at her. She then took a deep breath concentrated her mind and muttered to herself, "Master Spark." Immediately after that a blinding ray of light left the Hakkero. It was thin but really bright. Then after a second the beam widened into this humongous ray of energy that was coloured in all the colours of the rainbow but mostly in pure white. Marisa could feel the exitement, joy and zeal of success with her spell. Never had she ever even dreamt that it would turn out this magnificent when cast succesfully. She had full control over the spell despite its massive power. And when she finally snapped out from her joyful moment of success she realized that firing in single direction wouldn't do anything. So once she was sure that the youkai that had attacked her were dealt with she started to redirect the beam up to the sky. The sheer energy of her spell made it heavy to redirect but she managed to do so albeit painstakingly slowly.

"This is what you get for ruining my good night's sleep," Marisa yelled as she started to wreak havoc amongst the youkai in the sky. The youkai started to dodge Marisa's attack more than themselves. And soon the only sound that could be heard was the roaring of Marisa's beam until she finally stopped it by herself. The youkai started to scatter away from Marisa's house not in the fear of her but in the fear of the spell. Marisa did not know this but this spell was the insignia of a one certain youkai that no one wanted to trifle with.

"Yeah! That's right! Scurry back to your nests and don't even dare to show your faces here ever again," Marisa yelled after the fleeing youkai with triumphant look on her face.

"I'll have you know that Marisa is back," Marisa continued while doing some weird victory pose she thought was cool. She then inhaled the fresh night air and enjoyed the silence but her moment was cut short when another wave of explosions could be heard from above. She then looked up again and saw few beings still fighting in the air. Two red ones and one purple being. They were so high up that Marisa couldn't tell who or even what they were but she could still pretty safely tell that the other red and the purple being were fighting against the other red.

Massive beams were fired and bullets and other projectiles flew everywhere as these three beings clashed. At first Marisa thought that she should intervene but when she saw how much damage one beam dealt when it hit the forest near Marisa's house she decided to stay away from the conflict. Though she wasn't happy about her decision because that fight soon attracted the rest of the youkai she had driven away back to the skies above her house.

Just before Marisa was about to return inside to safety she saw how a spray of projectiles shot by the other red who was seemingly sided with the purple being hit the ground just in front of her terrace. But the thing she found strange was that instead of exploding like normal bullets they sank into the ground like blades. She quickly ran up to them, snatched one and ran inside before more of those youkai would take interest in her rather than themselves. She then shut the door behind herself and looked at the projectile she had snatched.

"Okay, what do we have over here?" Marisa muttered while leaning against the front door of her house. She then looked at the thing she had taken and was shocked when she realized that it really wasn't a real projectile of any sorts and in fact it was a red and white charm. Stiff from the spiritual energy surrounding it.

"Impossible...," Marisa muttered as she looked at the charm in her hands. She then walked up to her table, sat down and inspected the charm a bit more. But even after all her investigation it appeared to be a real deal. The colour, the aura, everything matched. It was practically identical to those she had seen Reimu using.

"This is impossible. Only the member of the Hakurei bloodline should be able to use these... unless... wait, could she be...?" Marisa muttered and looked our from the window where she could see the three figures still battling. She then took out her Hakkero and was just about to head outside when she saw something hitting the ground around her yard causing such a fierce explsion of energy that every single window of her house was broken and she was thrown into the back wall of her house. That's everything she could remember about the night since she blacked out after the impact and finally woke up when the first rays of sun could be seen through the, now pretty ruined forest.

"Gahh... It's not healthy to sleep on cold floor," Marisa groaned as she started to wake up. She held her head as she pushed herself away from her shelf that she had hit when launched backwards after that shockwave. She looked behind herself. She had left a dent, about her own size to the shelf. It appears that she hit it quite hard. She then looked at the floor. It was covered in glass shards from her broken windows.

"I'm gonna make them buy me new windows... Such a pain. Who decides to battle on top of my house anyway?" Marisa bridled as she stood up and held her back. It was quite stiff after her sleep on her cold and hard floor. She bended herself backwards until her back made a crackling noise and Marisa let out a blissful moan. Nothing felt better than crackling one's joints. She then looked at herself. She didn't seem to have any sewere injuries. Few small scars here and there from the glass shards but at least she wasn't bleeding. She then realized that she was still wearing only her pajamas and that it was quite cold now when the windows were broken. She then rushed to upstairs to change some proper clothes on. Once she was done changing her attire she returned downstairs. She then remembered what she had tried to do just before she was knocked out.

"The charm...," Marisa muttered as she looked at the, currently not so stiff and blade-like charm that was still on her table. It seemed that it had lost its spiritual energy during the night but Marisa wasn't interested in the charm anyway. Only the one who had used it was in her mind.

"If this is a real deal then... I have to check this," Marisa muttered to herself while staring at the charm with empty look on her face. She then quickly returned upstairs, grabbed her broom and charged out from her front door. She was about to visit the Hakurei shrine for the first time since she and Reimu had clashed with Rumia. She really didn't like the idea of returning to that place but the hope that Reimu's child could still be alive had sparked in Marisa's mind. She rushed out and was just about to take flight but something caught her attention when she laid her eyes to her yard. In the middle of it there was black, burned spot that basically radiated magical energy. She walked closer to it and realized that the center of the black spot was still glowing red from the heat and the air around it was so hot that she couldn't go closer than two meters.

"That must be where the shockwave came... But what caused it?" Marisa thought to herself while staring at the spot. She also noticed that there were some strange runes carved to the black spot around the center and they too were glowing. She couldn't tell what the runes meant but she assumed that they were the result of that blast, whatever it may have been. She decided to take a closer look at it after she would have returned from the shrine. That was her main priority now not the spot on the ground. She then took flight with her broom and headed towards the Hakurei shrine like she had done over ten years ago.

The flight felt shorter than Marisa had remembered and she didn't know if she enjoyed that or not. She landed on top of the shrine's torii like she used to do, sat down and started to watch. The shrine was silent but clearly well tended. All the traces of her, Reimu's and Rumia's battle had been cleaned up. It wasn't too big of a surprise though. Shrine was a sacred ground after all. Some people would start to take care of it eventually so that didn't get Marisa too exited. After not seeing anything for a while she hopped down and started to walk closer at the shrine. It was quiet. Either there was nobody or they were still sleeping. Marise walked up to the terrace of the shrine and next to the offering box that was in front of the main door leading to the shrine. She peeked into the box just out of curiosity.

"Empty as usual," Marisa mumbled after seeing that the box was as empty as Makai's landscape. She then lifted her gaze from the offering box and at the same exact time the front door of the shrine slided away and a swift kick met Marisa's chest.

"Thieves are not welcome," A voice yelled after Marisa had hit the stone path leading to the shrine with her back. She held her head and back as she started to recover from the sudden impact.

"If you were planning to leave donations then feel free to stay but I still don't have time. I'm in a middle of something important," The voice continued as Marisa scratched her head.

"What a way to greet someone," Marisa groaned as she stood up and took a look at who had kicked her in the first place. Once she laid her eyes to the person she was shocked and amazed at the same time. She had never felt Déjà-vu like the one she felt when she saw the person's face. The person in front of her had black semi long hair with red ribbon tied to the back of her head and red hair tubes on her sidelocks. She was wearing a red skirt and sleeveless red top with white collars and a yellow ribbon around her neck. She also had a pair of white detached sleeves. It wasn't your usual shrine maiden outfit but it was easy recognize it to be one. Marisa looked at the shrine maiden in front of her. She was almost identical to Reimu.

"What? You look like you've seen a ghost. Or are you a thief in the end?" The shrine maiden continued with strict tone.

"I-I'm sorry. I just wasn't expecting that anybody lived here anymore," Marisa said while staring at the shrine maiden.

"So you were planning to steal something. Don't you know that Hakurei shrine is sacred ground for Gensokyo and stealing from it will bring curses upon you?" The shrine maiden bridled with her arms akimbo.

"Do you really get cursed from that?" Marisa asked. She had never heard about something like that.

"How should I know. I'm just assuming that that's how it is. And if not I'll just exterminate you by my own," The shrine maiden said and shrugged her shoulders like it wasn't that big of a deal. Marisa just smirked nervously to the shrine maiden's comment. She didn't believe that the shrine maiden could take her on in a real battle given all the experience Marisa had. And now that Marisa thought about it the shrine maiden looked awfully young. Just about the same age as her current body.

"By the way who are you even. I don't recall seeing seeing human like you around too often," The shrine maiden asked since Marisa hadn't open her mouth to respond.

"The name's Marisa, Marisa Kirisame," Marisa responded. She was still a bit nervous. Looking at the shrine maiden's face reminded her a lot about Reimu.

"Oh so you're that human, from the village? What are you doing here all alone? The path to the shrine is dangerous for a kid like you," The shrine maiden responded and tilted her head.

"You're kid yourself. Besides I'm strong enough to look after myself. My home is in the forest from now on, not in the village. My talent for magic isn't understood in the village," Marisa responded with much more serious look on her face.

"So you're some sort of a witch of the forest? My job is to exterminate witches," The shrine maiden responded and cracked a playful grin.

"Nah, I prefer 'just an ordinary magician'. I don't like the sound of a witch of the forest anymore," Marisa said while looking at the ground. Reimu looked at her and then just rolled her eyes.

"So, who are you then?" Marisa asked and stared into shrine maiden's eyes.

"What? You truly don't know? My name is Reimu Hakurei the thirteenth Hakurei shrine maiden and currently the only heir to the powers of Hakurei there is. Surely one should have heard of the Hakurei shrine maiden at least once in their life," Reimu said and stared at Marisa with confused look on her face. Marisa then backed one step away from Reimu.

"R-Reimu...," Marisa mumbled. It was like she had seen a ghost again.

"What? There's something wrong with that?" Reimu asked with a bit more annoyed look on her face.

"No no. I think it's a beautiful name. Who gave you that name?" Marisa then asked with careful tone and look on her face.

"I was told that my mother hadn't given me a name before she died and so I was given the name one of her closest friends had proposed. I don't know who that was though, I was never told," Reimu said with thoughtful look on her face.

"S-so you live alone here?" Marisa continued carefully.

"Yep. Sometimes that old gap hag visits me to train me though but mostly alone. But you still haven't told me why you're here," Reimu said and looked into Marisa's eyes.

"W-well I saw you fight the last night. I thought that there were no Hakurei shrine maidens but when I saw one of your charms I decided to make sure," Marisa responded with still a bit careful tone.

"What made you think that there were no more of us?" Reimu asked with confused look on her face.

"It's just that... no one back in the village ever mentioned anything about the Hakurei shrine maiden," Marisa responded hastily.

"Typical... Though I'm not surprised. No one visits this shrine anymore," Reimu said and sighed while staring at the empty donation box behind her.

"I'm here now," Marisa responded and scratched her hair with slight grin on her face. Reimu then just rolled her eyes and cracked a gentle smile.

"But about that battle. Who were the other youkai figting during the last night?" Marisa continued with curious look on her face.

"Well I fought with that gap hag against that newcomer, you know, the owner of that strange mansion that appeared few days ago. She tried to conquer Gensokyo though me and my mentor defeated her," Reimu explained and shrugged her shoulders.

"Gap hag... mentor? Didn't Reimu mention that there was this enigmatic matron that lead the Hakurei bloodline when needed. Was it her who took Reimu from me while running away from Rumia?" Marisa thought to herself with thoughtful look on her face.

"Everything okay?" Reimu asked while looking at Marisa.

"Oh, sorry, just absorbed in thought. Also, I was thinking, what was that huge blast during the last night. The only thing I remember is the blast before I got knocked out," Marisa said with curious look on her face.

"Oh, that was the newcomer. She had this... spear I believe as a weapon. She threw it at us but missed and it hit the ground below us," Reimu said while scratching her hair trying to remember the events of the last night.

"By the way what was that thing you said you were busy with?" Marisa asked with a bit more curious look on her face.

"Well I guess there's no harm in showing you," Reimu responded and signed Marisa to follow her to the shrine. They walked in. Marisa was constantly having Déjà-vus since she hadn't visited that shrine in over ten years. Reimu brought her to the kotatsu of the shrine on top of which there was a pile of papers.

"What are these?" Marisa asked and looked at the papers.

"New rules for the combat. I call them Danmaku rules. I was told to create a new form of battle now after the incident we had last night. You may not have realized it but it was the bloodiest incident Gensokyo has ever faced," Reimu said with serious look on her face.

"Really? That seems hard to believe," Marisa said while looking into Reimu's eyes. Remembering the events from over ten years ago made her doubt Reimu's statement.

"Dozens of youkai were killed last night. We've never had incident of such caliber. The owner, the vampire of that mansion tried to even get to the village but luckily we stopped her. Because of her we've taken liberty of calling the events of the last night 'the vampire incident'," Reimu said while constantly looking into Marisa's eyes.

"So what's the purpose of these rules then?" Marisa asked while looking at the papers.

"Well when two people, human or youkai, engage in a duel they are forced to follow these certain rules. Physical contact is prohibited if not agreed before hand. Neither of them can rely on sheer physical nor magical force and instead have to create things called spellcards on their own. These spellcards are meant to represent the owners magical capabilities and wits when it comes to magical power. Though the catch is that the spellcards cannot be directly lethal. The one who gets hit for a certain amount first loses and then the winner can decide what to do in that situation. The main goal with these is to decrease the body count we have because of these reckless battles happening constantly all around Gensokyo," Reimu explained as well as she could.

"What makes you think that youkai will obey these rules?" Marisa asked and tilted her head.

"They asked me to create these themselves after the conflict during the last night. Anyone who doesn't follow these rules will be punished," Reimu continued with serious look n her face.

"Oh, I see. So the goal is to make your 'spellcards' as hard to dodge as possible?" Marisa asked just to make sure.

"Yep, precisely so," Reimu confirmed and smirked a little.

"So youkai hunters should be much more safe with these...," Marisa muttered to herself.

"Well when it comes to them there aren't many besides me. There haven't been any since my mother and her friend disappeared," Reimu said with a bit more sad look on her face.

"A-are you planning to become youkai hunter? You live in the Forest of Magic and practice magic," Reimu asked and looked into Marisa's eyes. Marisa looked at Reimu for a moment with almost surprised look on her face like hesitating before saying anything.

"I guess... you could call me a youkai hunter already," Marisa responded with unsure tone and look on her face. But this was enough to make Reimu smile.

"Oh I'm so happy to hear that I may have colleague. Staying at the shrine and exterminating youkai every now and then is... well lonely to say the least," Reimu said with a trace of sadness in her tone. Marisa just looked at her. It was unreal that she had met the girl she had sworn to protect over ten years ago now and that she was perfectly fine.

"This cannot be coincidence... So this is what they call fate, huh?" Marisa thought to herself while rubbing her chin.

"Something bothering you?" Reimu asked and looked at Marisa.

"Strange and romantic is fate, no?" Marisa uttered out loud.

"What was that?" Reimu asked with a bit confused tone.

"Oh just a saying that I like," Marisa responded and looked at Reimu with a slight smile on her face.

"I like the sound of that," Reimu responded and smiled back at Marisa.

"Me too. But I think I'll be returning to my own home soon. It is almost a relief to find out that the Hakurei shrine isn't as deserted as I've thought," Marisa said and stood up from the kotatsu.

"Well it has been kinda deserted till today. You're the first human visitor in almost two years so if you want feel free to visit again," Reimu responded with a hint of sadness in her smile.

"I'll be sure to do that," Marisa said, grinned and waved a good bye for Reimu before taking off towards her own home. Reimu just waved back at her and sighed.

"Fate... It's been a long time since I've believed in that," Reimu mumbled with a slight smile on her face, stood up and walked into kitchen to get some tea.

Days passed and Marisa kept her promise. She started to visit Reimu almost every day like she had done over ten years ago with her mother. Alice too was pleased. Once she saw that Marisa had something else to think about than her research and immortality she could start to take it easy with her. As Marisa visited Reimu more often Alice started visiting Marisa more and more rarely until she stopped visiting her completely. This didn't seem to bother Marisa because she was spending most of her time at the shrine. Alice too was fine with this because even if she considered Marisa to be her friend she still knew that there will be a time when she would have to start worrying about Marisa again but it wasn't now so she could focus onto her own research for a moment.

Month after Reimu and Marisa had reunited, even though Reimu had no idea that Marisa knew her before hand, Marisa was spending once again time at the shrine. This time she was planning to stay over night at Reimu's place. They were planning to do some star gazing. It was late evening and the sky was supposed to be completely clear by midnight. Both of them were sitting at the shrine's terrace and waiting for the clouds to move away while sipping some tea. It was moments like these that Marisa valued the most in her life. Peace and a friend by one's side. Though she still felt sad for some reason. She couldn't tell why that was and neither could she ease her feeling. She was just sitting there gazing up to the sky watching as more and more stars started to pop from behind the clouds. She then layed down to the terrace when she had finished her tea but as soon as she did she heard some familiar rustling from her pocket. She then remembered that she had that old drawing still with her. She reached into her pocket and pulled it out. She layed on the terrace and just looked at the drawing against the clearing sky.

"What is that?" Reimu then asked after she saw Marisa laying there and looking at the paper next to her.

"Ehh... You could call it all my hopes and dreams in a one object... Though I cannot quite recall why," Marisa responded with blank look on her face without looking at Reimu.

"What do you mean by that?" Reimu asked with a bit confused look on her face. Marisa then lowered the paper onto the terrace and looked at Reimu.

"I wish I knew. I've had this thing with me as long as I remember but never have i ever known why or why I find it so important," Marisa said while looking at Reimu. She then put the paper back into her pocket, sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Marisa, look the moon came out," Reimu then yelled and shook Marisa. Marisa then opened her eyes and looked at the sky. It had cleared almost completely and the full moon had finally appeared from behind a cloud.

"By the way did you know that there will be a lunar eclipse in about half month from now?" Marisa asked and grinned slightly.

"No I didn't," Reimu responded and looked at Marisa with surprised look on her face.

"We really need to have a moon viewing party here during that. Bloodmoon is so breathtaking if there aren't any clouds blocking it... or any incidents," Marisa said and laughed a bit.

"Yeah, though it would be good to finally get to test these new rules," Reimu said and looked back at the sky.

"Yeah...," Marisa muttered as she too looked at the sky that was now completely cloudless and full of stars like sparkling snow in the middle of the night under the light of the moon.

It was then when Marisa woke up from her thoughts. She was walking along side the road that lead into the forest from the shrine. She had been absorbed in thought and during that had landed down to the steps. Her original reason to come here was to see if there was a youkai stalking around the shrine grounds. She then just sighed as she walked a bit further but suddenly realized that she had become quite hungry all of a sudden. The shrine was still closer than the village so she decided to turn back and grab something to eat first.

Back at the shrine Reimu and Kasen were still thinking about the man's strange condition after he had crawled to the shrine.

"So was he just exhausted? Or maybe... sick?" Reimu muttered to herself while wondering the man's strange condition.

"He seems to have completely recovered by now, just by eating at the food stands," Kasen continued and pointed at the man who was seemingly enjoying his stay at the shrine. Reimu just stood there and thought about the situation when Kasen saw Marisa returning from her trip.

"Oh. Marisa's back. That was quick," Kasen said to Reimu as she watched how Marisa landed onto the path leading back to the shrine.

"So how was it? That was pretty fast," Reimu asked after Marisa had walked up to them.

"Ack! Um, well... I didn't get all the way to the village," Marisa responded like it was to be expected from her.

"What? Why not?" Reimu exclaimed in frustration. But Marisa didn't get a chance to respond when her stomach decided to demonstrate a whale's mating call.

"Um, well... I kinda got hungry. So I thought maybe I could grab a bite to eat first," Marisa said with a bit embarrassed look on her face.

"Abandoning your duties just because of a little hunger? Clearly I should never have expected anything from you. But fine. I'll go myself," Reimu said with clearly annoyed look on her face before taking off towards the village. Marisa just smirked and shrugged her shoulders before walking up to one of those food stands set up by Kappa for the festival.

"Man, I sure am glad there are all these food stands here," Marisa said after she bought something to eat.

"Well, army fights on its stomach, or so they say," Kasen replied to Marisa. She too had bought something to eat.

"That being said, turning around mid-route still seems like a bit too much," Kasen continued with a bit confused look on her face as she looked at Marisa.

"No, well, you see... I tried walking for a bit, just see if there was wrong down there, like the scent of blood or something," Marisa responded while eating her food.

"Would you even recognize the scent of blood?" Kasen asked with doubtful look on her face.

"You know, I've seen my share of bloodshed in my time. I think I know what battlefield smells like, thank you very much," Marisa responded with a strange grin on her face and gave an ominous laugh. Something like Kasen had never heard from Marisa's mouth.

"Where did that come from?" Kasen asked with utterly confused look on her face.

 **Author's last word**

Phew, finally done. Thank you for reading the prologue for Desires of Deepest Red and Scourge Shrouded in Gold. What? Prologue for them both? Yep, those two trilogies are connected. Let's just say that these longer stories I've written so far aren't just some random two trilogies and one prologue for them but instead I'll start to work on the fourth and last one pretty soon. So this turned out to be a tetralogy. Huh, only rarely I get to use that word. But just a word of warning. If I don't get the last story out before the end of next summer it's gonna be a whole another year till I can finish that one because I'll have to carry out my military service starting at the end of the next summer. So don't get your hopes up regarding the fourth story. But I promise that even if it would take over two years I'll still complete it no matter what. So now you can start to guess in your heads what's gonna happen in the finale of this small tetralogy I've created in. ;) And just a small hint, the epilogues I've made for DoDR and SSiG reveal quite lot. But this has been a story about Marisa's past. I hope you liked it because I truly enjoyed writing it. I'll start to work on the grand finale soon so stay tuned for the first part of the fourth episode. It may come out soon or it may take long till it comes out. Who knows. :^) But for now I have to bid you a farewell... for now.


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